sundries

On the one hand, I wasn't there and you weren't there and none of us know what happened. On the other hand, I sure do travel enough and have had enough weird and slightly unnerving experiences to find this to be completely plausible. This sort of thing is what you get when you have power in the hands of people without enough training in a fear-based culture where no one takes a bloody civics class anymore.

Houston elects openly gay mayor. CNN notes she "has never shied away from, nor made an issue of, her sexual orientation." This sentence makes me want to punch people in the face.

Poor children likelier to get antipsychotics. This could mean a lot of different things, none of them good.

Casual sex doesn't harm self-esteem, just you know, the crap people say about it does.

There's not succinct catchy way to encapsulate all the fail found in these supposed breast cancer awareness t-shirts (via shehasathree). "Take care of yourself or I'll sexually assault you" is only the most prominent of the offenses in them.

You can order Idol Musings now. I know the prices are high, and I haven't got my contributor's copy yet so I cant give you my theoretically objective opinion (about a volume I have five essay in), but one factor in the price is certainly that the publisher is in NZ. Anyway, there you go. I'm in a thing. Buy a book.

Last night we went to parties for marchek and hofnarr. Both were totally excellent and I had more fun than I usually do at such things (parties and I aren't always so good for all sorts of reasons). That said, 2009 still managed to demonstrate that it's Not Done With Us Yet (I'm glossing over what went down here, because it's not my story to tell, but it cast a long shadow). So while I may have started working on my end of the year recap, I'm probably going to wait right until the end of the year to post it. A decade thing might happen sooner.

Are you a university student who wants to do journalism in Africa? Win a trip.

Ginerbread TARDIS with Shooty Dog Thing. (via tsarina)