sundries

[rm]

Good day yesterday. Everyone is almost in the same time zone and there was productivity. I think tonight it might be sushi time, depending if Patty is noshy after her department's party tonight.

I am dithering about opera tickets. Also theater tickets at BAM for next season. All slightly complicated by many schedule things that we lack answers to or the ability to control.

The US government wants you to know that the best thing to do in case of a nuclear attack is to shelter where you are. Even minimal shelter, like a car, would result in fewer radioactive fall-out deaths. The problem? They're not sure how to communicate this without getting us upset. I AM UPSET. DO YOU HEAR ME? I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MY FUCKING COLD WAR CHILDHOOD AND I INHERENTLY OBJECT TO A RETURN TO REFLEXIVE BOMB-SHELTER DESIGN AS A RESPONSE TO AN UNCONTROLLABLE WORLD.

A town holds its silence about a bully's killing.

On a party planner. Oh, check out the slide show. Also, I want to see that map.

You've heard it before but, a piece on homophobia and how it's really about the challenge to male power that queerness represents.

The hunt is on for a serial killer in Long Island.

Journalism, in public.

Boehner, Clinton and the weeping problem. Interesting, but I think it's too sure of how people will response. Men crying makes US folks REALLY uncomfortable as a rule. I don't think it'll work in Boehner's favor, although I do think people will largely be uncomfortable discussing it, which might work in his favor. Here's another piece on it that's well-crafted but also avoids some of the questions of impact.

A look at Holbrooke's death and the suicide of Mark Madoff through the lens of Greek drama.

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Ireland's abortion ban.

Heroic, female and Muslim. Stop being surprised. The only thing possibly surprising here is that anyone -- regardless of religion or gender -- could be this awesome.

Things I can't quite believe I'm linking to. A piece from Rob Thomas on straight people standing up for gay rights. It's not a perfect piece by any means, but it makes the fascinating assertion that a civil union is about death (hospital visitation and inheritance rights) and a marriage is about life -- that's why the name matters. I don't necessarily agree, but it's a fantastic rhetorical flourish.

Glenn Close as an Irish man. HOT. HOT HOT HOT HOT. Now more than ever, I'm pleased that friends of mine used to say she should play me in a movie of my life.

Don't forget, got industry questions? Ask here.

Also, fandom, we're going to have another talk later today. Don't worry, Torchwood, this time it's not about you. Well, not any more than usual, but seriously, on today's topic we're at least better than average.

Comments

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

In junior high, my brother used to read books from the 1960s on nuclear warfare and we worked out at dinner one night that the thing to do was hope you were killed instantly or duck and cover.

The "emergency procedure" sheets when I was in school always had a space for the euphemistically entitled "nuclear emergency". Surely filling that blank in would be a first step. (Heck, duck and cover's not that dissimilar from school earthquake drills, I don't think. I explain school tornado drills to Californians by telling them it's duck and cover or an earthquake, but in the hallway, rather than under the desk.) Or just putting an item on the local news with some old civil defense video and the reporter saying "By the way, we figured out that really wasn't as stupid as we all thought it was." It might be enough to put the idea back in people's heads without alarming them. It's not as if people don't know what duck and cover is/was, so telling them it isn't the joke we treat it as would be a first step.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

That actually sounds like a really good plan, and a way to plant important information inside people's heads by disguising it as useless trivia. "By the way, those stupid 'duck and cover' videos? They were totally the right thing to do."

My former Boy Scout troop leader is a cop and had been the liason to the 911 operators for a while, so at one point he took us on a tour of that facility. They had all sorts of fancy fallout shelter technology built in...and fresh air vents you couldn't close. Apparently, in the event of an actual "nuclear event", most of them pretty much assumed they had no actual protection and resigned themselves to that.