sundries

[rm]

Patty has a desperate need to know how to say "fuckers" in Welsh. Look, I just report the news. Can you help?

A woman who lives in a trailer without electricity with her elderly father is in desperate need of a home so that she can safely recover from impending surgery. Again, real people, real situation, serious need. Your little can go a long way.

The Internet got it done for shes_unreal. She's posted a thank you note.

More on the NYPD's systematic mishandling of sexual assault cases. Basically, victims have been laughed at and cases intentionally lost of misclassified because they bore the common hallmarks of sexual assaults against women, including that the perpetrator is often (but not always) someone the victim knows.

I feel a certain sense of relief that the coverage of the oil spill is starting to recognize how bad, how permanent, how world-changing this event is going to be for all of us. It's still terrifying. Don't avoid talking about the oil spill just because it feels like you can't say enough. Here are some links to get you started on all the angles of this thing and no, that thing about nuking the spill site is not a joke. If you're not afraid, especially if you live on the coast anywhere in the eastern half of the US, you should be. Current estimates on the duration of the leak continuing to gush range from August until the end of this year. Since all the estimates have been wrong so far, I wouldn't consider this an end in sight.

Are you all following this news about a possible breast cancer vaccine? I'm hopeful in a very personal way! Anyone out there with any expertise want to tell us if the news is as hopeful as it sounds?

Y'all might hate Twitter, but anything with Sir Ian McKellan playing along can't be bad. (@ianmckellen118)

We talk a lot (often here) about the things Obama hasn't done for LGBT people. But we should also be talking about the list of things he has. They may not be the showy ones, but they do damn well matter.

Transman and wheelchair user Tyle McCormick is International Mr. Leather 2010.

Gay stewards who work for KLM want to be excused from working flights to Iran because the country is regarded as one of the world's most dangerous places for LGBT people.

For the first time in ages, I committed fic. See post prior.

Today on Angel: Seriously, RTD? Did you actually think you could get away with that? I mean, quite frankly, sort of tacky, even if I do find it hilarious that you basically took Angel and said "You know what would make this show better? Fucking. If everyone fucks everyone and we turn the dial up to eleven....." And to be fair, I still think Torchwood is the better show, but seriously?

Anyway, the Angel sinking, Cordy rising juxtaposition was nice. Lorne is still the best EVER. I'm so over Justine and her shit.

And I think it's hilarious that Wesley gets more action than anyone else in either Buffy or Angel. Also, that conversation he has with Lilah as she dresses to leave? Holy shit. That doesn't just come out of recent events. I think becoming a Watcher does something very bad and brutal to people. You can see it in Giles too. I'm curious if the show will ever address it.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I was in a play with John Rubenstein? And it's very weird to see a guy I've worked with and hung out with be evil and tortured on Angel? Very, very weird.

Comments

[elisi]

Anyway, the Angel sinking, Cordy rising juxtaposition was nice.
I was going to rec you the most wonderful ficlet, but it is *gone*! ::is sad:: But yes, it's very nice.

"You know what would make this show better? Fucking. If everyone fucks everyone and we turn the dial up to eleven....."
LOL. That's TW in a nutshell, it really is. :)

Also, that conversation he has with Lilah as she dresses to leave? Holy shit. That doesn't just come out of recent events.
See? Wesley/Lilah is... too delicious for words!

I think becoming a Watcher does something very bad and brutal to people. You can see it in Giles too. I'm curious if the show will ever address it.
Um... sorta. You'll get more insights into Wesley, certainly.

Also, yay for a possible breast cancer vaccine! Both my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law's wife have suffered from this.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You might be too new here to know that my maternal grandmother and her sister both died of breast cancer, a cousin on my father's side died of breast cancer at 39, and my mother is currently cancer-free after having a breast removed a couple of years ago. At 37, I watch this news and hope it's in time to save me.

[elisi]

Too new, yes. I really, really hope this is a proper breakthrough! *sends hugs*

(My brother-in-law and his wife were newly married and expecting their first child when she was diagnosed. She had to have a mastectomy, but had to wait until after the baby was born until she could start chemo. Both mother and baby are now happy and healthy, and everyone in the family is exceedingly grateful.)

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I think my problem with the oil spill is that I'm at the point where the only semi-coherent thing that comes out of my mouth is "OMGWTF is this, I don't even..." and that's not really productive (though it might be amusing).

I tried looking for that Twitter handle, and came up empty. :(

[rm.livejournal.com]

Typo now fixed.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yay for the twittersphere!

From @rhysw1 - Fuckers in #Welsh = 'Cnychwyr' (but no widely used - Ffwciwrs/Ffycars is how it's often said)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yay. But Patty might need some help pronouncing that.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Cnychwyr" (I'm no good at transliterating, but I'll try)

K'nuch-weir

K'nuch (like how the french in holy grail says "ke-niggit" for 'knight', but with a German CH sound)

Weir - like the small stream. Roll the R.

Ffwiciwrs/Ffycars is pronounced the same as the English equivalent "Fuckers" with a bit of Welsh spin on the R. ;)

Y - can be an 'uh' sound or 'e' depending on context. I'm not sure where the emphasis goes on cnychwyr, but I'm *guessing* it's the first syllable - CN-ych-wyr

best I can do, sorry!

[rm.livejournal.com]

I can probably make enough sense of that to teach Patty tonight.

[cigfran-cg.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where the emphasis goes on cnychwyr Not familiar with the term, so can't say for certain, but Welsh usually emphasizes the penultimate syllable, which would make it k'NUCHwir. ??

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I'm following the vaccine thing, and it's fascinating from a scientific point of view as well as being a reason for long-term personal optimism.

But the caveats? Are very serious caveats. First, of course, is the fact that many things treat cancer effectively in mice and go on to fail in human trials. I hope this won't be one of them, but in terms of pure odds I'd say it's more likely than not that this will turn out not to be anything like a magic bullet.

And even if it works, there are issues, and questions we don't know the answers to. It's designed to target cells that over-express one protein; it won't do a thing for tumors that don't. Which is to say that at its best it will protect against only one set of potential breast cancers, and perhaps give researchers a road map to try to develop further vaccines. And on top of that, there are unanswered questions about tumor growth, and whether it would work for people who already have microtumors in existence when they receive the vaccine. (That is, I gather we don't know a great deal about the secret history of tumors before they're big enough to be detected by any means we have available. It seems obvious enough that some grow faster than others -- after all, speed of growth is part of what makes some more dangerous than others once we do know they're there -- but for all we know the things could be there for years before they become detectable.)

But whether this particular vaccine works out or not, the approach strikes me as an enormous accomplishment, and something for science to build on. I'm excited about it, even with all of the cautions.

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

Grrr. KLM isn't allowing any more exceptions to flight to Iran, which ... WTF I think it's a death sentence to be gay there. How can anyone think it's okay to send someone where there's a legal death sentence on the books for who/what you are?

[gement.livejournal.com]

Regarding the newest in the line of Internet bake sales...

I give to some of these, and wish I could give to more. About the only way I can find sanity in terms of the pull to fix everything is to find an organization that's fighting the causes of distress at a systematic level. (For example, I can sleep better on international poverty issues when I'm active on Kiva and Heifer.)

Do you have any recommendations for domestic social safety net charities or activist organizations? I'm tiring of handing out bandages while not knowing what to do about the source of the injuries.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I have a HUGE list of these that people have sent me that I've simply not had time to put together and post, but it's coming, soon, really.

Also, with over 1,100 people having friended me, I figure if each person responds to just 1 of these a year (whether ti's with $$, job leads or other assistance), it's effective for people who need immediate help and may not have other resources.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

OMG! International Mr. Leather! That is awesome!

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

Today on Angel: Seriously, RTD? Did you actually think you could get away with that?

ahahahahaha I KNOW!

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I think becoming a Watcher does something very bad and brutal to people

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I thought I was the only person harboring that hypothesis.

I mean, consider the mentality of someone who's okay with a secret society, sending young girls off to their death, meddling with the occult, etc, etc. These are NOT "normal" people.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I imagine Watcher school is a bit like being an intern at Wolfram & Hart. Hence Wesley's thing with Lilah.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

(Making this note when I haven't seen Buffy since it first aired, and I have a mind like a sieve..)

Weren't young Potentials taken from their families and trained as Slayers? (Kendra)

So you not only have to be okay with this secret society that sends young girls off to their deaths, but also takes other young girls from their families and homes and trains them to grow up to be good little Slayers.

I've often wondered what happened to the Potentials who never became Slayers. Their whole life was focused to this one thing, and now it's gone. So is their childhood. They also have lost their families in a way. (If the Watchers just allowed them to go home to their families, what has now happened to their family bonds?)

Plus, what kind of education did the Potentials receive? Somehow I doubt it was a 'complete' education. How did this affect their lives later?

And now I'm thinking of Ralph Fiennes' line about Amon Goeth. That when you dehumanize others you dehumanize yourself as well. I don't remember the exact quote.

Darn... now I want fanfic. Anyone have any fic recs concerning potentials who never became Slayers?

[iamzulma.livejournal.com]

thank you from the bottom of my heart for boosting the signal.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Did you actually think you could get away with that? I mean, quite frankly, sort of tacky, even if I do find it hilarious that you basically took Angel and said "You know what would make this show better? Fucking. If everyone fucks everyone and we turn the dial up to eleven....."

The thing is though, Torchwood actually has a lot LESS fucking than most British TV in the same timeslot. If Torchwood has more fucking than Angel, I'd say it's simply because that's how they do things in British TV. However, I don't think you can say that the sex in Torchwood is dialled up to eleven when you look at it against comparable UK TV shows, such as Being Human and Misfits.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Thought you might like this article.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/31/granderson.god.gays/index.html

Oil Spill

[southern-belle2.livejournal.com]

As a resident of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and being 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, I have watched this disaster with grief and a sense of doom that is incomparable to believe. As I see dead pelicans wash ashore and hear that our beautiful white egrets and terns, sandpipers, and countless other wildlife that has left our shores and know they will never return, it saddens me that people seem to think this disaster will ever "get better" or "be cleaned". OIL DOESN'T GO AWAY! IT DOESN'T DISSOLVE! IT DOESN'T GET RE-ABSORBED BACK INTO NATURE! It is falling onto the floor of the Gulf and is pooling EVERYWHERE, ruining everything in comes in contact with.

The fragile ecosystem that has made our lifesblood is gone. Shrimping, oysterbeds, fishing, precious marshes, all of this is now a thing of the past. Never again will we be able to say you have fresh shrimp from Louisiana, or fresh oysters. The people here that have survived for generations as shrimpers, and fishermen are now out of work, forever.

To end my little diatribe here, I also get furious when I see the likes of Sarah Palin blaming Pres. Obama for this disaster.... don't I seem to remember a slogan "Drill, Baby, Drill" all over her and every Republican not too long ago? This is not a political disaster to me. It is a greed disaster and the blame goes to TransOcean for not addressing the 7 previous accidents and problems on their other rigs that they knew about and were simply too cheap to address and fix, as well as BP and their not wanting to address and fix problems that they also knew about and simply passed the buck on. There are still hundreds of oil rigs off the shores of Louisiana and we pray that this disaster never is repeated. Eleven men died that day, their bodies never found, their families forced to mourn and bury only empty coffins and tears, spattered with oil that will scar and remain forever in our hearts and most sadly on our coastline.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I love Lorne too. I also rather wish Mr. Hallet were in more things so I could watch him play other roles, given his obvious talent at both singng and acting.

[rinkori.livejournal.com]

I have met Tyler McCormick. He is incredibly generous and has a blindingly sunny personality. It's a good year for New Mexico as the winner of International Ms Leather, Jayson Da Boi, is from here as well!

[rinkori.livejournal.com]

*International Ms Bootblack, not International Ms Leather. Whoops.