sundries

[rm]

Things I don't love about Switzerland: the motion sensor in the bathroom TURNING THE LIGHTS OUT ON ME at inopportune times.

Things I do love about Switzerland: a popular catfood brand is ExcelCat. I see it, and I think, UBERCAT. Then I am pleased.

It's warm and beautiful here today. I've been watching the snow melt on the mountains when I've not been working my ass off.

Speaking of: I feel tired and fragile.

Patty so soon! We actually have to firm up dates to try to get her over here, because it's been complicated, but if nothing else, soon I will be there. I hope she got the package I sent her today, since it has Halloween treats in it. Any joy, baby?

neo_prodigy, with significant comprehensiveness, sums up the damage done to multiple communities by various straight, white female fans who don't get intersectionality.

Haiti still needs our help. It still hasn't finished recovering from the earthquake and the cholera outbreak is just one symptom of that.

Obama says his position on gay marriage has evolved. He's just not told us into what exactly. I'm getting tired of hoping. Let's have some happening.

Basketball and the billionaire. It's always the Nets. ALWAYS.

Public chess in NYC wound up with unique (incorrect) boards. So people are making due.

Links vastly not comprehensive, because I have time and connection problems. Seek out the world!

Theater Thursdays coming later!

Comments

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

FYI, the Hallowe'en production you posted about has been cancelled due to lack of material/actors. Alas! But the contact person is interested in my work, which is cool. :) Thanks for posting it.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

ExcelCat makes me imagine kitties making spreadsheets.

And then I passed out from cute overload.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

neo_prodigy has one item of fact wrong or else needs more detail-- moon was invited to be guest of honor well before her infamous post of september 2010.

i do not dispute the rest of what he says; my energy right now is on recovering from this rather than explaining my view of what happened (not that i'm saying mine disagrees much with his). it's just that that point is wrong, and i'd like us to get in trouble for what we actually did. [sighs]

--your friendly local wiscon concom member.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Okay, then someone needs to tell him that because there's this little thing where I'm out of the country with essentially no Internet.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i did! don't worry! :)

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I gather that he's . . . controversial, at best. People don't go to him for evenhanded or calm treatment of issues, especially since he's kind of notorious for refusing to entertain any kind of dissent in his comments, let alone engage with them. Which is his right, heaven knows; but it leaves one unable to be sure that, for instance, people haven't tried to correct him on the facts.

But at least it means his word isn't likely to be accepted as gospel by all readers. If that helps.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure if you're trying to give me a cookie or not. if so, please don't-- we did the right thing, but slower than i would have liked. right now i'm just concentrating on trying to do the right thing.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I never know precisely what people mean with this 'cookie' stuff, but I think I can assure you that no matter what these cookies are, my intentions had nothing to do with attempting to give you one.

There are issues with this particular poster; they're evidently longstanding; I thought it was perhaps a useful piece of information. Nothing more.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Does neo_prodigy think that straight white women are somehow worse than straight white men? Why is he calling out women specifically?

I don't know, I think most of us could use lessons on intersectionality, but I've seen enough sexism from him in the past that he's not the one I would choose to take lessons from.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I think the phenomenon he's reacting to is one that pretty much solely comes from cis, white women fen.

Cis, white male fen have plenty of their own fail, but the situations he's referring to are pretty much female-dominated spaces.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I take your point, but also emily_shore's. It's not that the point he's making isn't a good and important one (and the linkage is fab), but some of the language, and the prior history, still makes me uneasy.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

May I ask what language you find problematic? I confess I haven't been reading him for very long, but what I've read, while strongly said, is nothing I've disagreed with.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Like I said, some of this impression is predicated on previous things he's written, but just things like "chicks," "hissy fit," and in particular the "porcelain vagina" remarks which are a strong echo to my ears of both misogynistic gay men slamming women's anatomy and straight men complaining that women always think they have "pussies made of gold." Plus a a generally belligerent attitude about being called out on sexist stuff.

And as I said, I don't disagree with him either on this point. It's certainly nothing in this case worth calling out (and thus derailing). Just hearing some dissonant notes.

[(Anonymous)]

http://neo-prodigy.livejournal.com/853648.html

And the next breeder (specifically: speshul str8 wymnz) who tries to mansplain/white-cite/straight-talk down to me and defend that walking heterosexism simply because they have a homophobic fetish because they're too fucking trifling to deal with their own sexuality, I'm paying them a visit with a lead pipe in tow.

I'm not saying that he doesn't have the right to strong feelings about homophobia and fetishism directed at gay men within fandom, but that language--directed at women--creeps me out. And it's a consistent pattern with him, enough that it starts to bother me, despite the "oh, it's just hyperbole" defense.

[(Anonymous)]

How about he's a misogynist and, as a man, has no right to speak on behalf of women of any color? How do people keep missing that. If he were white, fandom would have shut him down.

But he's black, so a bunch of white people are falling all over themselves congratulating him for being misogynistic and speaking for WoC. Well done, fandom! Sexist, racist, and all around clueless.

[azn-jack-fiend.livejournal.com]

"If he were white, fandom would have shut him down."

Yes, that's inconvenient that he isn't white, isn't it? I know how that goes.

In the few months I've been following his posts, he's spoken up for women of color like me about, oh, 100x more than anyone else who isn't a woman of color. In light of that, comments about porcelain vaginas don't bother me that much. I prefer occasionally offensive support over serene indifference.

[(Anonymous)]

He's not a woman of color so he has no business speaking for me. End of story. I don't care how good of an ally he likes to pretend to be, allies need to know when to keep their mouths shut.

In light of that, comments about porcelain vaginas don't bother me that much.

Oh, you really are new to neo_progidy, aren't you? How about comments about strangling women? I like how mocking women for being weak and whiny is ok coming from a man because he's black and the women he speaks about are white. Gotta keep that whole dichotomy of the soft/weak white woman and the harsh/strong black woman alive somehow, I guess.

In light of that, comments about porcelain vaginas don't bother me that much. I prefer occasionally offensive support over serene indifference.

And you also prefer straw-man arguments over logic, apparently. Done with you. Anyone who is so blind and so happy to defend a man and seek his approval rather than think about some of the concerns women have about his misogyny has some serious issues and is just too far gone for me.

[azn-jack-fiend.livejournal.com]

I'm done with! How crushing.

I'm not dismissing others' concerns of misogyny. They just don't bother me personally that much. Men are all misogynist to some degree (so are women, really) and if I'm forced to choose between one case of misogynist commission versus a massive resounding wall of racist omission, it's really no choice at all. I'm sorry if my lack of loyalty to the sanctity of the vagina offends you... wait, actually, I'm not sorry at all :D

[(Anonymous)]

Men are all misogynist to some degree (so are women, really) and if I'm forced to choose between one case of misogynist commission versus a massive resounding wall of racist omission, it's really no choice at all. I'm sorry if my lack of loyalty to the sanctity of the vagina offends you... wait, actually, I'm not sorry at all :D


....

You're a fucking moron. Would it be okay if I dismissed someone's racism with "White people are all racist to some degree?" Or if I dismissed their homophobia with "straight people are all homophobic to some degree?"

Seriously, stop sucking his dick. It doesn't make you special or edgy, it just makes you another pathetic woman in fandom who is so desperate for male approval you don't care how many other women you step over to get it.

- DA

[azn-jack-fiend.livejournal.com]

Got last-word-itis, I see!

It would depend heavily on the context. I have to accept a certain level of background racism from white people all the time. I assume LGBTQ people have to do the same with heteronormative stuff. If I stopped talking to any white person who wasn't perfect on racial issues, I wouldn't talk to any white people. In fact, I probably couldn't even talk to myself.

And no, I don't care how many of you ridiculous cowards stewing in white resentment over at fail_fandomanon my support/dick-sucking happens to irritate. So flame on... although the ultimate duration of your ridiculousness is whatever rm decides, as for me, I don't mind.

[marcmagus]

Is your argument that he's calling out women specifically because in the particular spaces he's interacting with this sort of behavior is seen more often from women, or that the behavior he's calling out is more typical of the sort of fail that comes from cis white female fen than that of cis white male fen?

Because as a cis white male fan, the latter, so not true. We're very capable of, and commonly perpetrators of, exactly this sort of fail.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I believe "he's calling out women specifically because in the particular spaces he's interacting with this sort of behavior is seen more often from women," but I would not presume to speak for him.

Also, he's talking specifically about feminism, intersectionality, and the fails thereof, which aren't going to have as much to do with cis white male fail.

Obama and gay marriage

[punzel.livejournal.com]

To me, an obvious re-election strategy would be to back off on gay rights a bit, since he's not likely to lose those votes to a Republican candidate who could do better on gay issues, and it might swing some fence-sitters or even Republicans who are wary of too extreme a Republican candidate.

It's probably not going to be good news.

[marcmagus]

Back when I lived alone, I used to have a motion sensor in my bathroom. It was pretty cool not having to fumble for the switch in the dark when I stumbled in there in the middle of the night. It was a lot less cool being plunged into pitch blackness unexpectedly in the middle of a shower and having to reach past the curtain and wave my hand around to get the light back. I uninstalled it and installed a pushbutton switch in an easy-to-hit-by-touch location.

The people interviewed about the chess boards didn't seem to realize that chess is symmetric. It's exactly the same game if you play it on the mirror-image board. It just doesn't fit the patterns you recognize by sight (which is a really significant factor). Glad they fixed they promptly.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

When I see "ExcelCat" I think "cat working on spreadsheets." HALP.

Checking out the public chess and intersectionality links. I missed sundries.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of torn about the chess thing. On the one hand, everyone who plays chess has probably gotten well into a game and then realised the board was wrong. It's not like it makes it impossible to play, which is what the article made it sound like. The worst that's going to happen is that someone will think there was an illegal queen move and then you realise the board's wrong. On the other hand, if I sat down at such a table and went to set up the pieces, I'd almost certainly end up rotating the board, i.e. standing at the side of the table, because the need to fix it would be that strong.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

The summer I lived in Prague, the bathroom was tiny. When you switched on the light, it turned on a giant rattling fan that echoed in the all tile room. It was like showering in a jet engine. Eventually I gave up and started showing in the dark.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

"My position on gay marriage has evolved to where I still don't support it but you aren't allowed to criticise me for thinking you're due less rights than straight people, 'kay?"


And damn, Neo-Prodigy is summarising a lot of badness I've seen - it's kind of depressing to see it altogether there

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

the motion sensor in the bathroom TURNING THE LIGHTS OUT ON ME at inopportune times.

A particular restroom in my office building does that to me. I'm glad I'm not self-conscious about gesticulating while on the toilet to make sure the sensor senses me. It's kind of fun.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Things I don't love about Switzerland: the motion sensor in the bathroom TURNING THE LIGHTS OUT ON ME at inopportune times.

That happens at my chiropractor's office sometimes and it's very disconcerting!