More Geek Love.

Just a quick one this time: thanks to a new poster at the IBTP message boards, I’ve been introduced to something I should have seriously missed* before now: Feminst SciFi - The Blog!(TM)

So far, it’s good. Touches on just about everything: on the front page right now are posts about BSG: Razor, the passing of Verity Lambert**, aliens and sex/gender (not sex with aliens, which is more typical), and a bit about Joss Whedon’s new series, Dollhouse.

I’m looking forward to more reading. (Although I still have to see Razor. Bah for me being so wiped out the Saturday after Thanksgiving I didn’t even remember it was on that night.)

*I’d even asked for recommendations for feminist/not-horribly-misogynist scifi lit on said boards. Didn’t even occur to me there’d be a blog about it somewhere. I really am clueless sometimes. Or just so used to SciFi==Teh Menz Wurld, kthxbai.***

**Which I knew about, amazingly, even though I’m not the Dr. Who fan I used to be. Thanks Richie!

*** and if I ever forget again how to make bog-damned footnotes, this is the code to use with this version of WordPress: <span style=”font-size:0.8em;”> </span>

Random video goodness?

So. I’m hanging around IM, minding my own business, when a buddy of mine sends me a pretty damn cool video, thus:

Laser Graffiti

This, I say, is pretty damn spiff. In the words of lolcats everywhere:

PLZ I CAN DRAWZ LZR GRFFITI??

Speaking of which:

Internet Commenter Business Meeting 1 and 2

Anyone who’s commented on a blog bigger than this one, let alone a forum, knows exactly what this is about.

What good is it, anyway?

« Even the cat tries to keep me away from those evil fem-blogs. I needed something to break up the monotony of text, so I’m copying Twisty by posting photos.

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I’ve asked myself that question lately, especially in regards to reading feminist blogs. It’s something I feel I have to justify, somehow, although that comes with the awareness that the gut-twisting worry associated with Even though I’m angry more often (and that, coming from a woman, is definitely seen as negative by our society-at-large) I’m definitely learning, chiefly about myself and my privilege as a white middle-class educated Westerner.

Feminists in public

I’ve been back to reading the occasional feminist blog, as well as Salon.com’s Broadsheet. Usually I just read the articles, without even realizing, I guess, that there was a comments section too.

Perhaps, though, my subconscious was protecting me from what I was certain would be there.

What is intriguing (well, discouraging, really) to me is that the first (or early) response to each post there is some sort of personal attack, or statement meant to belittle, demean, or trivialize the topic — and usually by an anonymous poster.

Addendum to: Who *would* cry rape?

Having read Thinking Girl’s first guest post on Slant Truth (which boils down to “if you have privilege where another person doesn’t, and they feel marginalized, demeaned, etc.: shut up, listen and believe them. It’s their experience, not yours”), this thought ran across my head while catching up on the Twisty archives:

I believe a rape allegation because I wasn’t there, and she/he was, and that was her experience. If a woman says she was raped, the case needs to be taken seriously. Let the courts/judge decide, based on actual evidence, presented fairly.

Virtually everyone calls the reliability of a rape victim into question. The general consensus by the ugly side of the media machine (FOX News, I’m talking about YOU), once the declaration of insufficient evidence has been made, suddenly nothing has happened and ‘the girl’
made it all up.

Just because the prosecution couldn’t get up enough witnesses / the witnesses were not treated as credible doesn’t mean nothing happened.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Defense rests.

It’s all in the fine print.

I can’t decide if Tatsuya Ishida has a feminist streak or not, but he seems to sum up (and make fun of?) the patriarchy quite well.

Exhibit A:

EDIT: Sometime today, I passed 1,000 hits. Be happy for the little fledgling. ^^

hot teen action

So, is getting a bunch of spam advertising porn a sign I’m doing things right or what?

Seriously, this blog must have graduated or something. I only just to get ads for male sexual enhancement.

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UPDATE (2007-04-25 08:24):

On a related note, Twisty takes note of the responsibility of porn has in maintaining rape culture.

As Vera Venom comments:

Simply put - people saw the *men* tortured at Aru Gharib and they were horrified!! Horrified!!

They see women tortured in brutal porn and it’s sexysexy!

I <3 her, muchly.

It’s the little things.

Like this terribly accurate depiction of the early days of our marriage. Yes, really. [link]

Do go see him. David Malki ! is also the creator of what is possibly my favorite Alien loves Predator strip ever.

ALSO: I discovered landoverbaptist.org today. Yay for NSFW parody sites.

Note: In typing landoverbaptist.org the first time, I transposed two letters. You guess which ones.

ALSO, again: I’m a little hacked at WordPress making full CSS customization something you pay for. I mean, what gives? Even if I just want to make slight color alterations… *sigh*.

AUCH: Facebook is occasionally quite entertaining, like when this happens:

(Chuck is an acquaintance from elementary school — and his wife, Alice, had a FB account long before he did. He just added me as a friend tonight, and I was #4, so I’m guessing his account is brand-spankin-new.)

Feminism Friday, belated.

There’s been much on-bandwagon-jumping lately by the name of Feminism Friday (which I discovered via Thinking Girl), and I, on a Monday, have decided to start out with this. I’ve seen many ways to do this, and since I’m not in a place where I can do analysis of feminist issues with a (to me) clear voice, I am going to simply share where I’ve been, and maybe what thoughts they’ve provoked. We’ll see where all this goes, and how long I can keep it up.

Lessons this week(end) have been in discovering misogyny and the exercise of privilege in the durndest places.

wherein the author uses this site as an actual weblog

This via Cup O’ Joel, from Thoughts from Kansas:

“Kansas state Senator Kay O’Connor said in 2001:

I think the 19th Amendment, while it’s not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don’t approve of.… The 19th Amendment is around because men weren’t doing their jobs, and I think that’s sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family.

And that’s all well and good, I suppose. After all, a state senator is fairly limited in her ability to restrict the rights that the 19th Amendment grants. But Kay isn’t content to be a state Senator. She’s filed to run for Kansas Secretary of State, a position where she’d be directly responsible for ensuring that voting rights are protected.”

Realizing I’m just pointing to the pointer. Still. It’s at least reminded me that I need to register to vote (against such outrageousness) in the state of Kansas.

Read the whole entry here