(no subject)

[rm]

Patty and I had dinner with people last night. It was good and funny. It also tired us out. Tonight it's work, then laundry and packing and stuff for Chicago. All focus all the time. Also, yes, White Collar and Covert Affairs. More Buffy and Angel soon!

Oh hey, I made it to the final three in WIAD. Eeek. I feel like I'm on Project Runway, no challenge wins and going to Bryant Park.

Significant updates coming to my Dragon*Con schedule soon.

One-fifth of Pakistan is currently underwater.

Everyone should check out this piece on Tiger Beatdown that's actually several months old but I just got linked to today. It starts as a review of a book I have no desire to read because it sounds annoying. But the piece isn't really a book review, it's more about how we do discourse on the Internet. Note, I am not offering this to you in the spirit of "Oh, I have been wrong!" but in the spirit of "this sort of shit weighs on me all the time; there are no right answers more often than I'd like to think; sometimes I really hate myself; I try to do good; Good works -- very much including mine -- can be motivated by all sorts of things including spite and insecurity; God, there really is a lot of crap out there that needs to be called out; sometimes, this isn't fun anymore; please, tell me this is all hard for you too."

That said, check out Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on the Muslim Community Center slated for lower Manhattan. This is a long one, complex, and goes to a lot of places. In some ways its far from Olbermann's best rhetoric, because it's so all over place, but I respect its meanderings because he says a lot of things in it that are right to say, that another writer might have left out because it makes for a less efficient argument. It is also, among other things, in places a difficult listen, especially if you lost someone at the WTC. But it's worth listening to, all the way through.

Same-sex marriages on hold in CA -- the Ninth Circuit is in this now. I have no sense of the timeline on this. Anyone? (ETA: see first comment for answer).

New law allows sex-trafficking victims to clear their names.

The mystery of the khipus.

There's a ghost stroller in Brooklyn and no one is sure what it means.

Restoring the world's last surviving wooden whaling vessel.

The angry flight attendant already has reality TV offers: I TOLD YOU SO.

God, what the fuck with the throwing rocks at Tila Tequila? And hey, when she'd become a blonde?

Things I'm not linking too because they are from the department of the obvious: "Only children as social as peers" and "Teen sex doesn't always hurt grades."

I totally need this jacket, Y/Y? via jeliza.

Comments

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

You have to go to a site like TMZ (http://www.tmz.com/person/tila-tequila/) to get a better picture of the Tila Tequila thing, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture. There are numerous reports that she was warned about the hostile crowd, including by Insane Clown Posse (who say that they paid her ahead of time and told her that she didn't have to get on stage, but "Tila informed the group that she wouldn't back out of the performance because she's 'not a bitch like that'", then went on stage (with about four or five security guys running interference), responded to the crowd with "I ain't going nowhere" and "I don't give a fuck" and taking her top off (they have video of this) before leaving. They also have pictures of her injuries, and if she had to have stitches it would have been in the single figures; honestly, I've cut myself shaving.

None of which excuses the crowd, of course; throwing things like rocks and bottles (not to mention waste products) is never acceptable. But Tequila has a record of exaggerating or even fabricating incidents in order to get sympathy, and she was already talking lawsuit before she made it back to LA; I doubt that she'd win, although the prospect of seeing Tequila vs. Shaggy J in a courtroom might make me watch against my better impulses.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Er, "I've cut myself worse when shaving."

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I guess that's "Violent J", I don't know my Juggalopedia that well.

[marcmagus]

What's your point in belittling Tila's injuries and bringing up her taking her top off?

[Note: everything I've read says she took her top off in response to the crowd chanting "take off your top", and that the violence *increased* when she did so.]

[Note 2: you've cut yourself while shaving worse than that gash in her forehead that's plastered all over TMZ? I've had some unpleasant shaving mistakes, but never anything requiring stitches. I did gash my forehead open much like that, requiring about 8 stitches; it was a completely different sort of injury.]

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

I think I've made my point pretty clear in the second paragraph. WRT your notes: 1) So what? (One of the things that I've noticed about some people's reaction to TT is that they treat her as if she's a child, because of her diminutive size and big eyes, but she's a 29-year-old experience showbiz professional. I think that almost anyone else would have seen a hostile crowd throwing stuff, gone backstage and told Violent J, "Well, unless you can come up with 100 square feet of chicken wire in a big hurry, I'm gone like a cool breeze.") 2) That "gash on her forehead" is more like a shallow scratch, with a slightly deeper cut (but still not really stitch-worthy IMO)on her cheek, and a slight bruise on her thigh. I shave my head and used to cut myself all the time until I switched to a better razor, and still occasionally give myself a nick behind the ears that requires a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding.

[marcmagus]

1) The context in which you presented it suggested that you thought she was doing it to incite the violence, this doesn't seem to be the case. I take it you were rather trying to say that she was a fool for attempting to perform on a stage when being assaulted?

2) Still looks like a wound which requires stitches to me, but head wounds are kind of notorious for being deceptive in both directions (mine never bled, for instance).

So your point as I read it is that you believe TT to be exaggerating or even fabricating this incident, that her injuries are not as bad as they're being reported to be, that she was asking for it with her actions, and that, while people shouldn't throw rocks and shit at performers, these details are important to note in response to "what the fuck with the throwing rocks?" Is that an accurate assessment?

[idunn.livejournal.com]

Yup. Thank you.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

"Asking for it" is a rather heavily loaded phrase, and I don't believe that I'm interested in continuing this.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

Or you could apologize for victim-blaming. You know, either way.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

I should also note that I, myself, have been hit by a rock thrown by a member of an angry crowd, bad enough to require stitches on my scalp. It wasn't something where I had the option of getting on a plane, going halfway across the country, getting close-ups of my injury for my Twitter feed, and then checking myself into the hospital, it was police car->ambulance->emergency room. So, yes, I'm highly skeptical of the seriousness of her injuries, based on personal experience.