sundries

[rm]

Buy stuff, help with liver transplant: debsliverlovers. Come on, you know you want original art from Thomas Canty or Terri Windling.

There is also fanfic to fight breastcancer and Writers for Nashville.

This has been a terrible, terrible week for things and people in the world that need our help. It can get overwhelming. It can be hard to keep up. I'm struggling to just spread the word on all the sorts of things I like to spread the word on. It's okay. Just do what you can, if you can.

Appalling anti-Muslim story out of Jacksonville. via karjack

Today Patty and I head up to Essex for the weekend for, among other things, The Sailing Masters Ball.

Weirdly, the whole thing has put me in a nostalgic mood regarding the Bustle Ball I went to without her (I think she was on a dig) after judging a fencing tournament (Oh god, fencing. There's a mess I don't know how to fix, because I miss it so much, but I'm also way less stressed and not having my gender, intelligence, value, personal body awareness challenged inappropriately every two seconds anymore). I was in an unspeakably foul mood and exhausted from travel (I had to take a train back down to NYC from the tournament and then up to New Haven), and the night ended in me on my hands and knees in my finery scrubbing scuff marks off the floor while I made Ianto time-travel jokes after I'd seen all of one episode of Torchwood. I expect this to be more pleasant but just as funny.

I also wonder, a bit, how I'll be received, as this is a large event with a crowd I don't mostly know, and my experience of historical (especially American history) reenactment types are that they are either awesome liberal pervs who adore me or wacked out conservatives who think I'm going to hell for wearing trousers (and let's not even discuss what's in my trousers, shall we?¹).

Tangentally to all of that, my hair is getting a bit shaggy again, but I'm torn about cutting it. I hate when it's not neat, but it's more flexibly femme when I tolerate it at this length. Plus, I'm rocking my fake sideburns today, which I actually don't normally do, because it makes my ridiculous long face look even longer.

So the stock market yesterday! OMFG. I assumed when it was happening that it was some sort of Greece-related cascade. But, nope! Some idiot confused a B with an M and made a whole shitload of companies (including one my mom owns stock in) be worth $0 for a brief period. People made and lost millions and now all the wacky trades are being cancelled. I am in awe.

The UK election, which I got a small taste of while in London is fascinating to me.

First, I feel really bad for you guys going through the type of fraught uncertainty we experienced in 2000, and I hope it works out better for you all than it did for us.

Second, it was very weird to be in London during the first televised priministerial debate. So much of the coverage was about how to make it look like a movie, like in the US.

Third, I find this photograph eerie and unpleasant. It would make a good comic book panel.

Fourth... it's incorrect for me to say class, I suppose, since in the US we do mean it differently than its meant in the UK (here class is a nearly pure function of money except in certain small pockets; this addles me particularly because I grew up in one of those pockets), but I am interested in a certain degree of what, as an American, appears as honesty to me in terms of who your politicians have contempt for. I don't see, from my perspective, wealthy men who hate the poor trying to convince us they are average guys with mediocre attainments and sympathies for those making minimum wage. Oh no, you know who the candidates think the enemy is over there. At least comparatively. Here's you have the richest, most elitist dudes telling you their just folks, and anyone with an education is out to get you. My perspective may be wonked, but that's how it feels from here.

Fifth? Best UK election coverage so far other than that weird wrestling candidate infographic the BBC has going on? Paul Cornell on Twitter. I mean, if you can stand him talking about various candidates mating. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Tom Price, who's a bit more obviously cranky, is also pretty good.

Sixth: Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality. That's all I'm saying. You have a country with a Zombie/Vampire rights party and people are somehow puzzled by the Ianto Jones memorial at Mermaid Quay?!?!?!?! Let me repeat this folks, Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality. via beccaelizabeth.

Screed about unusual names. On one hand, I do find a lot of stuff people name their kids bizarre, and my own name can be a hassle. But really? Some cranky dude telling me my life's been ruined forever? Only if there were more assholes like him.

---

¹ Long, albeit somewhat obvious, story referenced solely to torment stakebait.

Comments

[reannon.livejournal.com]

Nashville auction: http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Linked it.

[azn-jack-fiend.livejournal.com]

Regarding class in the UK, I just started watching the 7-up series of documentaries, and if you haven't seen those before, they're really fascinating! The concept (it's still ongoing) was to follow a group of children who were seven years old in 1964, interviewing them about their lives every seven years. They're almost 56 now. I've only seen the 1964 one, and it's brutally honest about class (and very secondarily, race and gender) in a way you definitely don't see in the US. The kids have already been formed into a few very rigid molds. It was insightful, but extremely frustrating and depressing. It did have some funny parts, like when they took all the kids on a special outing to an "adventure playground" which to my 2010 eyes was a fancy name for an abandoned construction site packed full of death-dealing hazards.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha. Yes. I've seen the whole series.

I've just become increasingly of the opinion that Americans should always issue TONS of disclaimers when trying to talk about class in the UK, and someone like me should issue tons of disclaimers in trying to discuss it at all, because for fuck's sake I went to Miss Hewitt's Classes for Young Ladies. My perspective is WARPED.

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

I love my name, I get a ton of compliments on it and have throughout my life.

That said... ...if you're going to name a kid Whatever, I do tend to agree... name it that, and be done with it. Spelling it all wacked, then pronouncing it the same, doesn't make it different and unique. If you wanna be different and unique, be different and unique.

And I say this as someone with a unique name... and with a friend with an oddly spelled name, Wynnde--who HATED her name because noone got Wendy out of it.

[natf.livejournal.com]

Poor Wynnde. I would pronounce that wind-er from the spelling. There is no English Language way that that should be pronounced Wendy. Ugh.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I'm a pirate!

I don't have a pirate icon right now, though. But you should imagine one.

[rm.livejournal.com]

*swings you around*

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I don't see, from my perspective, wealthy men who hate the poor trying to convince us they are average guys with mediocre attainments and sympathies for those making minimum wage.

That's interesting, because that's more or less exactly what a lot of us see, especially in the Tory party, or if not actually hating the poor, just plain absolutley not understand them or the challenges they might face. David Cameron does PR backflips to pretend he's just normal bloke Dave, with a normal man's problems - his oppostion's favourite way to slander him is to remind us all he went to public school - in the British sense - and his grandad was a Baronet.

Perhaps it looks different to you because the mistrust comes from a different place? It's not that he has money or an education that's the problem, just that it's telling where he got them (which, yes, class, and I thank you for having the sensitivity to recognise the need for disclaimers because there are some deeply rooted cultural instincts at work here).

[rm.livejournal.com]

From here it just seems really clear that when your rich educated guys are hating on the poor and to me, it looks like they admit it. Whereas after years and years of the Bush trying to convince us he's our version of middle class, it's no less repugnant, but from here, oddly refreshing.

Of course, the UK doesn't have a pathological hatred of intelligence and education that the US has, so the lies your politicians tell are different.

[sethg]

The Daily Show had a segment a few weeks back where Jon Stewart and John Oliver discussed whether the first UK priministerial debate was up to American political standards. One of the things Stewart mentioned was the importance of portraying yourself as from humble origins. He played a clip of John Edwards reminding his audience that he was the son of a millworker... Al Sharpton replying that because of racial segregation, his parents hadn’t been allowed to work in the mill in the first place... Obama saying that his father had been a Kenyan goatherd... and then David Cameron(?) saying that his mother had been a magistrate.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

Having done my fair share of time in Jax, color me exceedingly unsurprised. I laugh at their idea of multiculturalism, as the only non-whites there are the blacks, who all live on that side of the river where decent folk never go.

There is a reason that North Florida gets referred to as Baja Georgia.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I know I'm missing key context, but why do you find that photograph bothersome?

I think it's kinda cool.

[rm.livejournal.com]

People who's politics I don't like caught in a pose that's powerful and weirdly pop-culture-esque. It's a great photo, but it's unsettling because it's a great photo.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

It would make a good comic book panel.

Yeah. So would the corresponding photo if there is one from the Witney results. (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party candidate was on David Cameron's right.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

So we're discussing in comments right above you -- is sunglasses guy BNP or what?

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Re: the name thing, I think there's a difference between Racheline and Racshylleenne. It's more of a "creative spellings" rant.

But how awesome is it that I just googled your first name and you're on the front page of search results?

I'm convinced creative spellings are partially a reaction to the internet as a social force; you can't reserve a URL for your baby Jane Smith (probably) or find her on facebook very easily. There are a few dozen people with my name, and it's not even a very common name (but it is spelled in a standard way).

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I love finding out that the Name Police apparently aren't just something we made up for the fantasy novel, but exist. In France. *dies laughing*

I wish I understood this UK election better.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

In a nutshell, nobody won, now nobody's happy, not even the people who wanted nobody to win, and we're either on the brink of electoral reform (woo!) or a Conservative Prime Minister (boo!) or something somewhere in between (uh, ooh?). Simples!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

After my stint at social services, I find a great many of those names groan worthy. The only upside to the oh so creative spelling of your special snowflake was that it was easier to identify you in a records search.

There's an interesting chapter in Freakanomics about names, the idea that names make one more or less successful and all that. It is pretty interesting and turns some assumptions upside down.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

So I went to look at the page of UK election results where they have the person running from the Undead Rights party . . . and the candidate below that is named Leo Atreides??? I choose to believe there was a typo committed, and someone dropped a "t."

I have a weird name - as in, my parents invented it by mashing a couple of otherwise normal words/names together; I've spent my life explaining what my nickname is short for, and putting up with the usual Wow's and "Oh how interestng/unusual/pretty/whatever" and nosy questions about Where did it come from and What nationality is that ("my parents were born in the Midwest") and spelling it and etc. and really, it's just tedious. It hasn't ruined my life.

But I wasn't named something irritating like Candy Caine, either. I think I'd feel differently about that sort of nonsense.

In France, for example, the district attorney has a short window of time after a child is born to block names contrary to the interest of the child, including those that are pejorative or rude or would cause ridicule.

Okay, what name on /earth/ will never get ridiculed??

[mystefaction.livejournal.com]

In practice I think it's not so restrictive as that description might suggest - I spent 6 months teaching in France, and was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of modern naming. Very much not as conservative as what we were exposed to in our textbooks. I had a girl called Viridiana in one class. :o)

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

Having lived through the insanity of the 2000 election in college and then voting in my first UK general election as a newish British citizen, I feel like the uncertainty here is more tempered than the 'OMGWTFSupremeCourt' was almost 10 years ago (has it been that long already?).

Regardless of which coalition is formed, I think there will be another election within a couple of years. Yes, I'm disappointed the Lib Dems didn't have a better result, but I know there were loads of 'safe' seats (like where I live), whose MPs were more or less guaranteed to be re-elected. If actual reform takes place, that will be the best outcome.

[featherofeeling.livejournal.com]

Speaking of both photographs and class in the UK:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/23/ian-jack-photograph

[wednesday]

Here's you have the richest, most elitist dudes telling you their just folks, and anyone with an education is out to get you. My perspective may be wonked, but that's how it feels from here.

Ask me someday what it was like to be an uneducated woman believed to be of American citizenship* in Cambridge.

* my green card application and dual nationality would suggest otherwise, but apparently Canadians are Americans because Canada is in North America AHAHAHAHAHAHA SO CLEVER ARE WE grr argh.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My husband texted me from Gasworks Park today to tell me some parents were addressing their son as Adonis.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

Mileage can really vary on unusual names. I had an unusual name, hated it all my life, got tons of stupid flak and jokes about it. I eventually changed it and while it certainly hasn't changed my life in any global sense, I no longer am inwardly cringing when I introduce myself. For me, that's pretty damn cool.

For people who have an unusual name and like it, or at least have come to terms with it to the point where they wouldn't change it, that's their business.

I do think deliberately misspelling a kid's name just to be unique is just silly and mainly serves to make you look uneducated. While some names have accepted variations (like Catherine/Katherine), Cath'rin is just a whole 'nother story.