sundries

[rm]

Well, that's what we call a very exciting morning. Still freaking out. Thank god it's not during my five weeks in Europe, that would blow so hard.

Patty approaches the comps finish line. There will be much sleeping when she crosses it. I, however, have had at least one benefit from the matter, in that her research came upon a VERY useful quote for my work last night about burials and how they are about enacting and negotiating social relationships. So hey!

I currently possess an awesome secret plan for if Patty and I can manage to runaway to Amsterdam for a weekend while we're both in Europe this fall. Fingers crossed.

Okay, the Qu'ran burning may or may not be called off and Trump has offered to buy the building where the community center wants to build to stop it, but the owner of the building isn't taking the offer seriously (go you!) and right now the center is still on for that location.

People who don't suck: The Massachusetts Bible Society which will be donating two Qu'rans for each one burnt by the extremists in Florida to community centers, prisons, hospitals, shelters -- basically anywhere there may be Muslims without access to their holy text. via pecunium.

The memorial murals of 9/11. (Note: I do post 9/11 things every year, just as a warning for those who might find it triggery. There will be more tomorrow.)

The story of a Muslim woman, widowed by 9/11.

In other news, yesterday also saw DADT declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in CA, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the Log Cabin Republicans (I don't get their road, but it's a hard one to walk in the face of the current state of their party, so credit where credit is due). What happens next and how Obama's justice department will handle this is not only a big question, but a matter of potentially fascinating and heartbreaking political chess.

How effective will this past year's census be in counting gay couples?

Oh hey, an LJ friend has a rhyming picture book for kids out about a kid with two moms.

There is now a petition to tell Google "lesbian" and "bisexual" are not offensive search terms. Of course, the problem is broader than that, as someone discovered/pointed out that if you search on many words related to race and ethnicity (i.e., "Latina") you also get the same results again because of buckets of fetishizing porn.

pgdudda has more on the Roma expulsions in the EU and why they are a problem and making things worse. Small words. Super clear. Check it out.

The passive-agressive missives of NYC. I love this, considering we have had everything from pianos and mattresses to dog shit and tangerines left in the public halls of our building. Also, dear downstairs guy: if you ever saw the legs off a metal stool in the hallway after 10pm again, I am calling the cops on you, even if you are "almost done" (also, Patty will kick your ass).

And, to go back to my OH MY GOD moment of the morning, today requires obligatory musical theater news. Have some: Spiderman!

Finally, from the entire Internet: 100 British cats let loose in an Ikea turns out to be charming beyond words. The finished ad is amazing both as film and advertising. Thanks to airspaniel for the ad link.

Comments

[count-to-seven.livejournal.com]

If the Qu'ran burning had gone through, I had permission from my store's owners to drive over tonight to protest.

Not going to go so far as to say triggery, but I am definitely avoiding the posts and memorials if I can. My own desire to recount my Where I Was makes me feel ridiculously self-indulgent. I have to wonder if anyone else feels that way.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think lots of people do. I wrote about it every year for a while, but I've sort of run out of shit to say. I generally link back to random past stuff I wrote about it and two pieces of art about it that I love and leave it alone. Last year I'm not sure if I did anything at all.

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

Um.. the Qu'ran burning is only tentatively cancelled, depending on if the pastor can get a meeting with the imam in NYC. And even then it isn't clear if it is halted indefinitely or just temporarily.

My source is from the national section of my local news, but I read through an app so I don't have a direct link. Homepage is www.wpxi.com.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Adjusted.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to the finished Ikea cats commercial. It really is a stunning piece of advertising.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's AMAZING.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

I know! I was SO impressed. The cinematography is just gorgeous. I spent the whole time alternating between "Wow" and "D'aww..."

[rm.livejournal.com]

To me the two moments that make it amazing are the one with the lightbulbs and the long shot of the one cat running through the warehouse.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

The one with the lightbulbs... I had to pause the video for a long time and just look at it. Stunning filmmaking.

[meirion.livejournal.com]

I was always going to furnish my flat in Corsica with IKEA stuff, but now .... wow. I'm just looking forward to my future kittens running up, round and about my minimalist furniture, and when they're slightly older and more sedate curling up on the shelves for a sleep.

[count-to-seven.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. I heard about this on NPR this morning and could not find it.

[airspaniel.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

From the mural article:

It’s surprising to find scattered among America’s poorest and most segregated neighborhoods murals projecting such raw expressions of patriotism.

I don't understand what's so surprising about this. Poor folk aren't patriots? I guess I just don't get the NYT.

Re: 9/11 - I leave commemorations to the folks who live in NYC, DC, and Stony Creek, and to the people who lost loved ones to the bombings. I am sad for the loss of life...but more sad for the loss of freedoms around the country in the aftermath. And sad, too, that my husband and Elder Monster aren't really safe any more, thanks to the fear-mongering that has taken place in the years since the bombings.

On 9/11/01, my husband was punched in the face by a customer at his place of employment, called a "fucking ragtop", and had his life threatened because "you people blew up fucking New York". Elder Monster was assaulted at school and called "sand nigger" and "dune coon". Neither had any clue at the time what had happened - neither retailers nor schools are in the habit of having the idiot box on - and

both are US citizens, born and raised

. My husband is of Syrian extraction, and his heritage shows in his face and Elder Monster's. (Younger Monster is pale as a sheet, but refuses to "pass". He'll cheerfully snarl at people talking about "fucking muck mucks" that he's a fucking muck muck himself, and tell them to shut the fuck up.)

I avoid the media on 9/11. I quietly mourn, but for different reasons than most people. What you as a New Yorker lost is

awful

. What we as a nation lost is sad and disgusting.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry your family had those experiences. I have friends here who had similar ones as well. I wrote a lot about this idea of During and After when it first happened, and I still believe this is During, because shit is still rippling out and wounding us from those events; we have not, because of the very types of things you cite, yet recovered.

And wow, NYTimes fail (I should really stop being surprised). I looked at the murals and didn't read the text. oi.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's ever going to be an After, with so many people

determined

to keep us at During? All of the hate and fear-mongering has given people permission to essentially BE the Ugly American that folks abroad speak so derisively of, and be PROUD of being the Ugly American.

I saw a lot of Americans Behaving Badly - mostly American military personnel! - when I lived in Germany in the 80s. It was embarrassing to admit that those people were my countrymen, and I apologized a lot for their existence. Now I see it right here at home, directed at our own citizens, and I'm not embarrassed any more. I'm PISSED THE FUCK OFF. It's all I can do to keep my hands to myself, to not reach out and grab these people by the throat and shake them as hard as I can and ask them what the fuck is wrong with them.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Wow. I learned two new anti-Muslim/Arab slurs from what you wrote. (I'm unsurprised by this on several counts, but I'm saddened on your family's behalf.)

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

We learn new ones all the time. It's amazing, what the ignorant can come up with sometimes.

I think my favorite, though, is "terrorist". People think it's OK to tell my husband terrorist jokes, or tell me right in front of him. It even happened at Lowe's once - and it was an EMPLOYEE! He asks my husband "What's the difference between a toddler and a terrorist? A terrorist wears his diaper on his head!!" To my American, Atheist husband, while we're just trying to buy some flowers for the gardens. *sigh*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Is there an anti-Defamation group for Arabs/Muslims the way there is for Jews? Or maybe this is an ACLU thing. You didn't say whether you confronted the store management about this, but I can understand why you'd feel uncomfortable doing so, if you didn't.

AAAGH.

I've had experiences where I was the first well-educated non-white that some people had encountered, and evidently it seriously hurt their brains to deal with it. So they chose to just have double vision - what they believed, they believed, but me, I was "people" to them. (i.e. I was a real person, everyone else was a stereotype.)

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

I nearly jumped over the flower cart to get to the guy. I was ready to claw his eyes out, I was so pissed. Hubby grabbed me by the sweater and dragged me off down another aisle, muttering that it wasn't worth it, let it go.

I called the store manager the next morning anyway. Described the associate, manager knew exactly who I was talking about. Repeated the "joke". The manager gasped so loudly when I got to the punch line, he sucked the air out of MY room. I've never heard such profuse apologies for anything in the history of ever. He assured me that such was not Lowe's policy, and that the situation would be handled. I learned later from another associate that he had been called in immediately, read the riot act, and terminated. (I don't know that I'm happy about that. I would rather they sent him to sensitivity training, to at least try to educate him, but maybe they had tried that already. Some people can't be taught.)

I've had experiences where I was the first well-educated non-white that some people had encountered, and evidently it seriously hurt their brains to deal with it. So they chose to just have double vision - what they believed, they believed, but me, I was "people" to them. (i.e. I was a real person, everyone else was a stereotype.)

How frustrating! This sort of thing really gets my back up. In THIS century? People should be over that kind of nonsense. And yet, here we are, surrounded by idiots still.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

You are a *freakin' hero* for following through with that. The fact that the manager knew who it was, and had that strong a reaction - I'm going to guess interventions in the past that had no effect.

People aren't going to be over that kind of nonsense until their churches and communities stop teaching hate because it's lucrative and convenient for them. I'm so angry at the Rand/ReligiousRight/Republican axis of class warfare that I can't put my words together coherently.

[delux-vivens.livejournal.com]

It’s surprising to find scattered among America’s poorest and most segregated neighborhoods murals projecting such raw expressions of patriotism.

This kind of fuckery is why i no longer make an effort to read the nyt.

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

On the crazed FL pastor -- I did very much like reading that the local fire department plans to fine his ass off for bonfires without permits. Could be good old fashioned boring regulations to the rescue? Will be interesting to see what happens. Clearly the guy is relishing all the attention.

Westboro church is totally put out because THEY burnt qurans in '08 and no one cared.

About google -- I've been playing with this and I really don't get this. So let's say I type in bisexual...right about at bisex, the possible completions and results disappear. Then I finish the word, no longer having any results show, then when I hit return, I get my results. But I don't have pornography in my results.

Same with latina -- it's okay up to latin, then blanks on the "a". But again my results don't bring up pornography.

I think (if I go thru my google account) I've probably set my searches to exclude pornography. But in that case, Instant should realize that and turn this "feature" off. And if I've *asked* for porn not to be excluded, then there's no point in censoring the results anyway!

Hm, if I use another browser without logging into my google crap, I no longer have the instant feature (but that *could* be a limitation of the browser I used, which is a FF clone that runs on linux). But the dropdown box still works the same way -- tries matching up until bisexual is the clear intention, but the drop down box goes away. (And the results still exclude porn, actually -- or rather, non porn results are weighted higher and show up first.)

I think my biggest issue is the lack of transparency on this. It shouldn't be hard to figure out what's going on or why -- give us choices, let us tweak our own settings and so on.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks! Hopefully people will BUY LIKE THE WIND, because writing is all I have to sell, and we are being crushed right now.

[girlupnorth]

Thanks for the Ikea/cats links! It's totally adorable.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Apropos of nothing but mutual interests, if you haven't heard The Correspondents, they're kind of insane and wonderful. They're trapped in this bizarre limbo between club techno and 20s jazz, and they have excellently absurd dress sense.

Here is a song almost entirely about classic men's clothing. http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/s/Rogue/2V8UnE

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Good luck getting an in-room ticket to the Baz-at-Paley thing!

Go, Mass. Bible Society! Good to have a reminder that just as all Muslims are not terrorists, all Christians are not xenophobic assholes.

I echo missysedai's bemusement over the NY Times's bemusement over the phenomenon of 9/11 murals in lower-income neighborhoods. Where the hell do they find these writers?

I'm going to keep an eye out for references to the Roma situation at work, because that is NOT COOL.

Fingers crossed for the Julie Taymor's Spiderman. Offhand, the only superhero musicals I can recall are It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman and The Toxic Avenger: The Musical. It'll be interesting to see what Broadway looks like in five years if this takes off. (Holy crow -- WONDER WOMAN musical. It could be like Annie Get Your Gun, with capes!)

IKEA kitties! My favorite bit of the making-of segment is when the cat captures the sound guy's spoffle (or whatever that furry thing that goes over the microphone is called).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Good luck getting an in-room ticket to the Baz-at-Paley thing!

I figure I'll pull it off. I don't know how, probably by sitting on Craigslist a lot, but certainly on the list of challenging things, how hard can it be?

Also, speaking of that and Julie Taymor -- why hasn't someone put together a conversation for an audience with those two?

[meirion.livejournal.com]

Good to have a reminder that just as all Muslims are not terrorists, all Christians are not xenophobic assholes.

If all of Christianity were as it is portrayed by the Religious Right (or indeed by the majority of my family) I would not have returned to it. Fortunately it isn't. Finding another church quite this good when I move countries in a few months may be a harder problem.

I do often end up thinking when people (usually of the fundamentalist sort) say WWJD (what would Jesus do) "probably the diametric opposite of what you propose to do"!

Soon we will have bedbugs and then, likely, raccoons

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I used to have raccoons on the roof every morning in Toronto. The Pre-Dawn Patrol. Save yourselves! Nag your neighbours!

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

I love Amsterdam. I hope you and Patty can make it happen.