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| I stumbled across this thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hatfullofstars :
California Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Struck Down
In a much-anticipated ruling issued Thursday, the California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.
Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, sued to overturn state laws allowing only marriages between a man and a woman.
This is great, great news! I know a lot of people worked tirelessly to make their voices heard on this issue. I was expecting the worst, and it's amazing that the judges voted on the side of compassion and equality. California is now the 2nd state to allow legal same-sex marriages! This is a big deal, people -- California is a barometer state the rest of the country looks to when considering legislation.
Today is full of !WIN! on all fronts!
Update
Jezebel picked up the story. Good conversation going in the comments.
Shakespeare's Sister Report
Feministing Quick Hit | 57 comments or Leave a comment   |
| Awesome Woman Sighting
Also on NPR - this incredible interview with Dr. Chandini Perera.
Severe burns or fires kill or injure nearly 4 million women each year, according to figures from the World Health Organization, and nearly half of the reported cases occur in Southeast Asia.
Dr. Chandini Perera, one of only six plastic surgeons in Sri Lanka, performs reconstructive surgery to burn victims. She says most of the victims are poor and their living conditions make them vulnerable to the danger of fire.
But there's a disturbing dynamic in some cases: Women are set on fire by their husbands and boyfriends, and others set themselves on fire in an empty bid to escape abuse.
Those who survive the burns do so with disfigurement and disabilities requiring long recovery periods. That process tends to be more emotional than physical, Perera says, noting that victims are often ostracized. That, in turn, keeps the problems hidden.
"If you are stigmatized and you are an outcast, then you live in this unseen world," Perera says.
Perera believes that empowering burn victims to reenter society will help change social attitudes.
Dr. Perera is currently in the States working to raise awareness for the burn victims. And I have to say, this woman's name is going right on the list of my personal heroes.
Random Funny
Someone reported Anthony Caine from Lynn Johnston's FBOFW in the Canon Sues LJ community. Bwah! 'Bout time!
Artist Reference
This site is chock full of very slick-looking free Photoshop brushes, patterns, custom shapes and more!
More on The Clique
Remember when I posted about The Clique books here and here?
NPR has a short segment you might find interesting. | | Leave a comment |
| I finally got around to watching Fast Food Nation. I don't understand all the bad reviews it got -- the movie was excellent and featured an incredible ensemble cast: Greg Kinnear, Catalina Sandino Moreno (who was scintillating in Maria, Full of Grace), Wilmer Valderrama (Fez in That 70's Show, and still cute as a button), Bruce Willis, Kris Kristofferson, and Ethan Hawke, just to name a few.
If you're interested, please take my advice and read the book first. Eric Schlosser co-wrote the screenplay for the movie, so it's not like the movie is a dumbed down, commercialized version of the book's message. It's a very accurate fictionalization of the themes and events Schlosser covered in the book. I just want people to have fair warning, because if the book is too graphic for you, you are not going to be able to make it through the movie.
I also finally got my copy of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma from the library -- I have no idea what to expect, and I'll let you guys know what I think after I've finished it.
I just finished Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. It was excellent, and not what I was expecting. It's basically a Critical Thinking 101 class. The Skeptic's Toolkit chapter alone made it worth the while for me. The only downer? Now I'm bummed out all over again that he's dead. :( | | 18 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is my favorite part of the movie version of Rent, which I watch way too often. It just kills me every time when the camera pans around the Life Support group and the chairs start emptying.
I was going to school in Philly when Rent was first making the rounds. I remember walking past all the kids sleeping out on the sidewalk on Broad Street, in front of the theater Rent was playing at. They were hoping to get the discounted seats that were reserved at each show for people who couldn't afford full-price tickets.
Rent closes on Broadway this September.
| | 21 comments or Leave a comment |
| I wanted to wait until my birthday to promote this. Happy May, everyone!
Byzarium is still unable to accept submissions at this time. My life is full of crazy, but I'm making headway, and there are good things on the horizon. Yesterday I turned the first chapter of Book 2 of The Faerie Path manga in to my editor at Tokyopop. I am now gathering together material and getting ready to go to MOCCA, along with my friends Karen Luk and Rachel Nabors in June. More on that later! I'm also deeply mired in a personal writing project. So yes: BUSY. @_@
Your helpful grammar tip for the day
Whose vs Who's
Whose is the possessive.
Who's is a contraction of 'who is' or 'who has'. | | 43 comments or Leave a comment |
| My absolute least favorite plot device has got to be the Incredibly Stubborn Character. This character will ignore what's right in front of their eyes for as long as the writer deems necessary; in other words, usually about 20 pages after my patience has run out. This technique does not advance the plot, it stalls it. Interminably. Example?
"Jenny, please, I have to tell you--"
"No, Karl! It's your fault Mother died!"
"That's not--"
"You were driving the car!"
"I need to tell you--"
"No! I won't listen to any more of your lies!"
*flounce flounce flounce*
Repeat ad nauseum.
Usually, after the second time some variation of this little exchange has played out, I no longer care for the character. In fact, I want to take the character's head and bang it against the wall until some sense is knocked into it.
What's your least favorite plot device? | | 16 comments or Leave a comment |
| Found via Erik Milligan's LJ:
Memphis Principal Accused of Outing Gay Students
Snips below:
Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union say Daphne Beasley, the principal of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School in South Memphis, went way beyond her role as educator.
The ACLU says in September 2007, Beasley asked her staff to give her the names of students who were couples, heterosexual and homosexual, because she wanted to keep an eye on them to cut down on public displays of affection.
She's accused of publicly posting the names of those students, including two boys, Andrew and Nicholas, who had just started dating. The ACLU says that in doing so, Beasley revealed their relationship to other students, teachers and even their parents.
....
One of the young men, Nicholas, an 11th grader who just made the Dean's List ... says his teachers and other students treat him differently as a result of Principal Beasley's decision and that he and Andrew have both had to deal with verbal assaults. Nicholas was also not allowed to go on a trip to New Orleans to help rebuild homes because, as one of his teacher's explained, he would "embarrass" the school by engaging in gay affection.
"I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded," Nicholas says. "I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outed me to my mother!" [emphasis mine]
I don't even know what to SAY. This just blows my mind. How an educator, who is supposed to be looking out for kids' best interests, could go ahead and do something like this is just crazy. How did she know the kids' parents wouldn't flip out and either attack them or kick them out of the house? Did she have any idea what kind of situation they were living in? It sounds like the parents aren't losing their shit, but she didn't have any way of KNOWING that.
What year is this again? 2008? And we're still stumbling over this 2-inch-high curb? Pathetic. Update
Feministing's picked up the story and has more information. | | 23 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've been reading a lot of Scientific American lately, so you can imagine my joy when someone pointed me towards a real gem. You all know my weak spot for blisteringly on-target sarcasm, right? Well, this editorial is so caustic it could strip paint. Enjoy.
Also, happy May Day - don't forget to support your local unions! As for my Day of Action activity: I'm donating money to my charity of choice, Never Cry Wolf Rescue. Right now they have a deal going with White Wolf Gallery - 50% of the proceeds from the purchase of select jewelry (scroll all the way down to the bottom) will be donated to NCW.
Personally, that style of jewelry is not for me, so I just donated to the Fostered Wolf Maintenance Fund. | | 32 comments or Leave a comment |
| | rant | | Stupid People | | 09:21 am |
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| OK, I almost just got flattened by the World's Most Oblivious Biker. No helmet. No gloves. No hands on the handlebars. One arm, slack at her side. The other? Busy propping her cell phone up in her ear. Giant, old-school 50's style sunglasses. And she gave me that little sneery look like it was my fault when she almost swerved right into me.
Yeesh. Who knew biking would be so dangerous? @_@ | | 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| EDITED BASED ON SHARED INFORMATION
Hooooo-boy, Feministing is ripping GTA4 a new asshole, mostly regarding a recently released game trailer. In all fairness, this trailer is NOT produced by Rockstar Games. It's produced by the hosting site, IGN. Thanks to radiata-prime for catching that. So complaints should definitely be sent straight to IGN.
SEND COMPLAINTS TO IGN.
Because man. What the fuck are they THINKING?
Now, where did I put my sarcasm...I know it's around here somewhere! Ah! There it is. *ahem*
Wow! The trailer sure is a lot of fun! It makes the game look really, really good! You get to go trolling for prostitutes AND strippers, and then you get to drive around and shoot them in the streets! You can run them down and mash them up against rocks after they have finished servicing you sexually! And the women depicted in the trailer are almost ALL women of color! Yay! This is so much better than all the torture porn we enjoyed last year!
Anyway, back to the Feministing article. It's a pretty...uh...lively read, over there. Trolling fanboys and fangirls have crawled out of the woodwork to defend the game and the whole discussion broke down pretty quick. Some real gems there, though -- I urge you to go give them a peek. This one is my hands-down favorite:
I'm not saying there's no grounds to object to the series, I'm just saying that the violence against women isn't special, there's violence against EVERYONE. I'm just not understanding why people are particularly offended by the killing of prostitutes, and not the killing of everyone else.
Gosh, I dunno buddy, maybe women get a little sore about this because women get raped and killed ALL THE FUCKING TIME IN THE REAL WORLD? I mean, hello? Darfur, anyone? The Congo? Golly, I think maybe that just MIGHT be why some of us girls get so testy about this stuff. To quote my husband, how is this escapism?
Seriously, you go find me a game that receives the kind of publicity the GTA series enjoys, where female characters chase down male characters, club them over the head like baby seals, stick a cucumber up their butts, and then shoot them in the back of the head. You tell me, with a straight face, that there wouldn't be fanboys lining the streets shrieking in protest over something like that. Especially if it were happening to men in the real world all the time?
Shit man. It's not like I want the game censored or ripped off the shelves or anything. But I am kind of tired of people smacking down anyone who points out that it IS a misogynistic game. Kind of like how fans come crawling out of the woodwork every time one of us complains about the absolute ridiculousness of the overly-sexualized female character designs in mainstream comics, and the All Rape, All The Time backstories. It just gets OLD. It becomes part of this overall cultural roar and it's exhausting not being able to get away from it. Movies, games, overall culture - it just keeps screaming the same shit over and over again, and I guess those of us it bothers are just expected to sit back and keep our mouths shut about it or something.
If companies are going to make stuff like this and release it to the public, then I'm allowed to criticism it. That's the way the world works. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but I'm allowed to have an opinion.
I don't think violent games/movies/whatever CAUSE the sort of problems they portray in the real world, but I sure as hell think our media is a REFLECTION of actual real-world problems and attitudes.
We had all that torture porn last year. Then BoobGate: An Example of Male Entitlement In Action. The world, for the most part, doing jack and shit about the Congo. KBR contractors' rape cases going nowhere. It's just one been feminist nightmare after another.
*Sigh*
I miss Frogger. And Space Invaders.
Shit. I'm OLD. @_@
Edit: I wonder if Wal Mart will carry the game? You know how they are about family values. | | 77 comments or Leave a comment |
| Fascinating article. Highly recommended.
Skirt Chasers: Why the Media Depicts the Trans Revolution in Lipstick and Heels
by Julia Serano
Trans people—who transition from male to female or female to male and often live completely unnoticed as the sex “opposite” to that which they were born—have the potential to transform the gender class system as we know it. Our existence challenges the conventional wisdom that the differences between women and men are primarily the product of biology. Trans people can wreak havoc on such taken-for-granted concepts as feminine and masculine, homosexual and hetero-sexual, because these words are rendered virtually meaningless when a person’s biological sex and lived sex are not the same. But because we are a threat to the categories that enable male and heterosexual privilege, the images and experiences of trans people are presented in the media in a way that reaffirms, rather than challenges, gender stereotypes. [snip] | | 18 comments or Leave a comment |
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