rm | sundries, item 0

This may be a little ranty today.

Item 1: I probably don't have a leg to stand on in asking people not to be all "let's talk shit about a celebrity," but I've run into a huge amount of it lately directed at people I either know or have good friends who are super close to the parties in question, and it makes me uncomfortable. FYI and do as you will, but way better in your journal than in mine.

Item 2: Yes, I've asked people to knock it off with the size-ism around here, and y'all have, and that's awesome. However there was a little thingy about it yesterday, that makes me need to say this: we can't always ask people to view themselves the same way we see them, so if someone makes a nasty comment about themselves please be gentle in asking them to watch their language. Yes, that stuff has a ripple effect, but as someone who has enough self-hating crap of their own, sometimes people need to do their stuff. I always appreciate it when you try to talk me out of it, but some days it's hard to be good to ourselves and near impossible to be good to other people. Also, we all define what's best for us differently. Complex situation has complex non-answer.

Item 3: And on that note, we're all mostly doing the best we can. We're all not going to agree on how we can do the best we can for ourselves and others. We're all going to prioritize different issues, and we're all going to come at things from multiple lenses. And we're all going to use tools - like hyperbole and metaphor - to tell stories, and sometimes those tools or those stories will get us in trouble. But that doesn't make stories or the tools or the reach for narrative inherently bad. Sometimes I wish all of us, myself included, could track a little harder on the babies in the bathwater (then again, I eat babies, so there may be issues in this whole theory). Still, don't be an asshole, apologize when you fuck up, listen when people talk, stand behind your words when it counts, say what you mean, mean what you say, grasp that everything has consequences and that some of those can even be quite good.

Item 4: Hey, stop ragging on people for being successful. Don't like someone's output? Go off on that! Are appalled at their racism? Just saw the YouTube video where they kick some puppies? Expose that shit! But this whole thing where success (or ambition) seems to inately imply crap work, crap attitudes, crap morals, crap everything in some circles and then we're all bullying little nastygrams about it? Not on. Like most things, success isn't the evil, it's the stuff that sometimes hitches a ride. But cutting down other people won't lift you up. Trust me, I know, I've tried it, early and often.

Item 5: I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner in the UK on Thursday. Because the UK, obviously, doesn't have Thanksgiving, and has different culinary habits than NYC, could anyone speak to me of the ease of finding: a whole chicken (not turkey, because I actually hate it), sweet potatoes, canned pumpkin, sliced ham steak, brown sugar, pecans, and pine nuts in Cardiff supermarkets?

And where I am with the TSA thing:

- You need to deal with this in the way that's best for you. People saying that people should protest and in what ways they should protest isn't fair considering all the intersecting issues involved. People saying "this is one most of protest that's being organized on this day, please considering participating if you can" is a lot more reasonable.

- People talking about protesting by being sexually assaultive towards TSA employees are being assholes. Period.

- If you are considering engaging in inappropriate public nudity in protest, please consider the impact this may have on those around you in line. A lot of people's stuff is getting triggered by the situation, and your actions have a lot of potential repercussions outside of protest.

- Yes, I know protest isn't supposed to be comfortable, but meeting violation with more violation pretty much sucks.

- Yes, I know that an actually effective pat down will feel pretty damn invasive, having had the experience in travel (I think in Europe though) in that last year. HOWEVER, one of the big concerns about the TSA doing it is that these are not trained law enforcement officers who have had thorough background checks. The idea of someone on the sex offender registry who doesn't know what their' doing patting me down? Yeah no.

- Yes, I know the scanners fall somewhere between more dangerous than the TSA is saying and less dangerous than mutant death rays (or, you know, an extra twenty minutes in flight). However, as a frequent traveler with a significant family breast cancer history, if I don't want to go in one of those things, it's my choice to make. And I have fuck all (which is to say NONE WHATSOEVER) patience with people on the Internet who want to tell me I'm wrong to have pause.

- Similarly, I know it may be irrational as someone whose ass has been five feet tall and luminous (Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, 2006), but the whole naked picture thingy weirds me out thanks to the recent confirmation that yes, it can see if you're wearing a sanitary napkin or tampon. At the point that you're looking at what's in my cunt and there's not a consented to gynecological examine prison strip search going on, there's a problem.

- There are very few good options in this mess. Information may be the only power you have, because at least it can help you make the right choice for you.

kdsorceress reports on her opt-out experience which seems, as she described it, both professional and unnerving. I know her in person, and so can say this is probably very useful reading for what to expect if you engage the system politely and professionally. Reassuring it ain't.

browneyedgirl65 has been doing a series of roundups on all this: Try this and this.

- What am I doing? Well, I'm in Europe, and I don't know what my opt-out options are. I also know that even for US traveling, I'm going to have to play it by ear. Because both options raise issues for me, and the right choice for me is going to be different on different days.

Apartheid-era photos return to South Africa.

The NYC Subway may be about to slip the bonds of the city. If it does, EVERYTHING changes.

The chain store fate of many a New York movie palace.

DO YOU ALL WANT MORE PICTURES OF THE BABY CATHEDRAL DEER? You seemed to really like those is all I'm saying.