Chicago dive bar scores hit with nude Sarah Palin portrait
There is so much WTF in that article I don't even know where to start.
Question of the Day
11 hours ago
Monday, September 29, 2008
A place you want to go
"Where everybody knows your name..."
Actually, no, not Cheers. :)
But I just added Minimum Security to my blogroll, and everyone should totally go check it out.
^_^
P.S. Minimum Security is a kickass webcomic.
Actually, no, not Cheers. :)
But I just added Minimum Security to my blogroll, and everyone should totally go check it out.
^_^
P.S. Minimum Security is a kickass webcomic.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Llencelynn's Adventures
Yay! I doodled another comic this past summer, and I've been procrastinating about making a digital version. Here 'tis!
Click for a bigger version. :)
Click for a bigger version. :)
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Women's Voices
Hello everyone. It has been a week since I posted. I feel suspended. Like my brain is in a state of cryo-stasis while the world rages on around me. I just want this year to be over. I want Beloved to come home, and stay here. He'll come home for a visit, mid-tour, but I am only half looking forward to that - he'll have to leave again, which I dread.
So please bear with me if sometimes I fail at posting. What little writing strength I have I need to save for the newsletter article I am supposed to be writing for the end of the month.
Since I can't really write about anything, let me share the writings of another woman.
Miscarriage of Justice: How Losing a Baby Feels Like Real Rip-off, by Laura Moulton
I don't think the website I read this at is explicitly feminist - it says it is a site about parenting. But miscarriage is a topic that is taboo. We don't talk about it. Like we don't talk about a lot of the trials and tribulations that women face (remember, you must be always graceful and smiling, even when ejecting malformed fetus tissue from your body). I'd like to spread this woman's story.
Please go read that link. It should take all of ten minutes, tops. It is sad, and it is, quite frankly, gross (don't read it while eating - I could barely finish my pancake), but it is touching, and it is honest.
Bring women's voices out from hiding.
So please bear with me if sometimes I fail at posting. What little writing strength I have I need to save for the newsletter article I am supposed to be writing for the end of the month.
Since I can't really write about anything, let me share the writings of another woman.
Miscarriage of Justice: How Losing a Baby Feels Like Real Rip-off, by Laura Moulton
I don't think the website I read this at is explicitly feminist - it says it is a site about parenting. But miscarriage is a topic that is taboo. We don't talk about it. Like we don't talk about a lot of the trials and tribulations that women face (remember, you must be always graceful and smiling, even when ejecting malformed fetus tissue from your body). I'd like to spread this woman's story.
Please go read that link. It should take all of ten minutes, tops. It is sad, and it is, quite frankly, gross (don't read it while eating - I could barely finish my pancake), but it is touching, and it is honest.
Bring women's voices out from hiding.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
This Has Been Explained Before
But it looks like I'm going to have to do it myself, tonight, before I can get any sleep.
I'm going to relate this story and conversation as best I can recall it. I'll use quotations to indicate dialogue, though almost none of it is the exact wording - I don't have that type of memory. I'm going to do all of my analysis and discussion after. There is a part, also, that I'm leaving out because I can't remember how it fit in and I don't want to make that up. Just know that I did, in fact, have plans to hang out with friends (was in fact buying booze for that purpose), and that was vocalized during these events.
When people hear this story, they will typically react either as if to humor (because the elderly aren't allowed to have sexual motivations or attractiveness, and therefore, "Eww, gross lol!") or with pity (because old men are perceived as powerless, impotent, non-threatening, and I just hurt his feelings or something).
So. Let us evaluate this in the best light. Let us assume the best intentions, the most truth and honesty.
Let's say that, despite this fellow contradicting himself numerous times, he did, in fact, simply want to have an amusing discussion over dinner with a soul from a younger generation. Fine. Very sweet, I'm sure. I must have missed out on a genuinely enlightening and entertaining experience, right?
But, and excuse my language, here, how the fuck was I supposed to know this? How the metric fuck am I supposed to be able to tell the difference, in the space of that conversation, between the sweet old man of our assumptions and the predator who simply wants my ripe young body?
FUCK.
This man came up to me in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I am, at least, 30 years his junior. He has no way of knowing whether I'm even available or open to advances. He starts out by emphasizing my looks - "so pretty" - and asks me out to dinner which is a classic date.
It is only when I reject this approach that he attempts to backtrack and make it seem more innocuous.
He assumed that I had the time to spare for him, a stranger in no peril. He took up a good fifteen minutes of that time, too, by making repeated advances to which I had to repeatedly say no! I said "No" or an effective no a minimum of four times during the course of the conversation.
And in the process, he made ME feel guilty for rejecting him. ME! He was the one who should have felt uncomfortable, for invading my space, appropriating my time, and making a random advance in a fucking parking lot. I said, "I'm sorry, I can't," instead of "I'm sorry, I don't want to" because the former is "nicer." I should, by all rights, have felt comfortable telling him to please leave me alone and should have felt comfortable getting more forceful as he persisted. But I did NOT because, as a woman, it is of course my responsibility to sacrifice my time for others, on the off-chance that they're a nice person - a lesson in which the training does not wear off easily.
Well fuck. He can be the nicest person in the world for all I care, but it was still the most egregious display of his own male privilege that he felt entitled to walk up to a complete stranger in an environment not pre-established as an approach-friendly atmosphere (such as a bar or dance club or mutual-interest-club/social-event) and to ask her to give up her evening to him, or even any evenings in the future.
Not only that, but despite his being somewhat older, he still looked stronger than me. He intimidated me, made me feel uncomfortable, and even scared me. What if he had not stayed "polite" (though I feel he lost the rights to that epithet when he didn't leave me alone after the first no)? What if he'd gotten belligerent? What if I had not been so close to the store, what if it had been late at night and there were fewer people around?
Fuck.
You know what might make me the maddest of all?
If I'd had a ring on my finger or a male person with me this wouldn't have happened.
Fuck.
I'm going to relate this story and conversation as best I can recall it. I'll use quotations to indicate dialogue, though almost none of it is the exact wording - I don't have that type of memory. I'm going to do all of my analysis and discussion after. There is a part, also, that I'm leaving out because I can't remember how it fit in and I don't want to make that up. Just know that I did, in fact, have plans to hang out with friends (was in fact buying booze for that purpose), and that was vocalized during these events.
I had just finished shopping and was about to put my bags into the trunk of my car when an older fellow walked up to me. I estimate his age around 50, given that he had a full head of blindingly white hair but no difficulty walking and fewer wrinkles than I typically expect an older person would have. I would hesitate to put him at younger than 45, and also at older than 70. So... A large range, I know, but it puts him, at minimum, 25 years older than me.
Anyway.
"Miss, I'm sorry, but I saw you in the store and I just thought to myself that I had to say something. I thought you were just so pretty I just had to ask you if you would have dinner with me."
Quite dumbfounded, I respond, literally, by saying, "I'm sorry, what?"
"I know you are quite young, but I live alone and I was just thinking I didn't want to eat alone tonight, and you were so pretty..."
Thoughts flood my head on how I can possibly respond to this, but I say, "I'm... I'm really sorry, but I'm just not comfortable with that."
"Well, I just thought that perhaps we could share insights between generations..."
"I'm sorry, but no, I can't."
[insert a long monologue on his part explaining where he lives; that he attended some classes at my college; that he likes my peace sign earrings - to which I respond, in my most forceful answer, that I wear them because my fiancé is in Afghanistan and so peace is very important to me]
"Perhaps some other time?"
"I'm sorry, no."
"Well maybe I could get your - "
"No, I don't think..."
"Oh, right! Could I give you my number, and you could call me sometime?"
"No, really, I'm just... I'm sorry, but..."
"Oh."
And he walks away. I put my bags in the trunk, get in the car, lock the doors and start to tear up.
When people hear this story, they will typically react either as if to humor (because the elderly aren't allowed to have sexual motivations or attractiveness, and therefore, "Eww, gross lol!") or with pity (because old men are perceived as powerless, impotent, non-threatening, and I just hurt his feelings or something).
So. Let us evaluate this in the best light. Let us assume the best intentions, the most truth and honesty.
Let's say that, despite this fellow contradicting himself numerous times, he did, in fact, simply want to have an amusing discussion over dinner with a soul from a younger generation. Fine. Very sweet, I'm sure. I must have missed out on a genuinely enlightening and entertaining experience, right?
But, and excuse my language, here, how the fuck was I supposed to know this? How the metric fuck am I supposed to be able to tell the difference, in the space of that conversation, between the sweet old man of our assumptions and the predator who simply wants my ripe young body?
FUCK.
This man came up to me in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I am, at least, 30 years his junior. He has no way of knowing whether I'm even available or open to advances. He starts out by emphasizing my looks - "so pretty" - and asks me out to dinner which is a classic date.
It is only when I reject this approach that he attempts to backtrack and make it seem more innocuous.
He assumed that I had the time to spare for him, a stranger in no peril. He took up a good fifteen minutes of that time, too, by making repeated advances to which I had to repeatedly say no! I said "No" or an effective no a minimum of four times during the course of the conversation.
And in the process, he made ME feel guilty for rejecting him. ME! He was the one who should have felt uncomfortable, for invading my space, appropriating my time, and making a random advance in a fucking parking lot. I said, "I'm sorry, I can't," instead of "I'm sorry, I don't want to" because the former is "nicer." I should, by all rights, have felt comfortable telling him to please leave me alone and should have felt comfortable getting more forceful as he persisted. But I did NOT because, as a woman, it is of course my responsibility to sacrifice my time for others, on the off-chance that they're a nice person - a lesson in which the training does not wear off easily.
Well fuck. He can be the nicest person in the world for all I care, but it was still the most egregious display of his own male privilege that he felt entitled to walk up to a complete stranger in an environment not pre-established as an approach-friendly atmosphere (such as a bar or dance club or mutual-interest-club/social-event) and to ask her to give up her evening to him, or even any evenings in the future.
Not only that, but despite his being somewhat older, he still looked stronger than me. He intimidated me, made me feel uncomfortable, and even scared me. What if he had not stayed "polite" (though I feel he lost the rights to that epithet when he didn't leave me alone after the first no)? What if he'd gotten belligerent? What if I had not been so close to the store, what if it had been late at night and there were fewer people around?
Fuck.
You know what might make me the maddest of all?
If I'd had a ring on my finger or a male person with me this wouldn't have happened.
Fuck.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Solidarity
I find it really comforting to know that I am not the only feminist who occasionally breaks down and cries from the seeming futility of it all.
It is okay for me to get fed up and frustrated, to feel like I'll never make a difference, to come so close to saying, "Fine, you win, I give up." Because, like other feminists, whose work I read about and admire, I don't let the morosity overcome me. I pick myself up and am right back in the fray as soon as possible.
Thank you, other feminists, for reminding me that it's okay to be human.
It is okay for me to get fed up and frustrated, to feel like I'll never make a difference, to come so close to saying, "Fine, you win, I give up." Because, like other feminists, whose work I read about and admire, I don't let the morosity overcome me. I pick myself up and am right back in the fray as soon as possible.
Thank you, other feminists, for reminding me that it's okay to be human.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Someone Needs a Dictionary
Found this link, which is a story about a study done on the effects of the sound of various car engines on arousal (yes, really).
It said:
Can someone please tell me how the sound of a machine that was invented less than a century ago can produce a "primeval" response?
ARGH.
Slightly less rageful analysis: yet another tick in the column pointing out that evo-psych is a load of bull. Reactions to cars CANNOT be a product of evolution - they haven't been around long enough. Therefore it is a SOCIALLY INDUCED reaction - something we learn during the course of our individual lives.
There was no link, that I could see, to the actual study, so I have no way of determining if the actual scientists involved offered a better explanation/description.
Lastly, I think the author used "primeval" to mean "sexual." Which just brings me back to the title of this post.
It said:
Moxon, who carried out the research for insurance outfit Hiscox (yes, we know), said: "We saw significant peaks, particularly in women. The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological response."
Can someone please tell me how the sound of a machine that was invented less than a century ago can produce a "primeval" response?
ARGH.
Slightly less rageful analysis: yet another tick in the column pointing out that evo-psych is a load of bull. Reactions to cars CANNOT be a product of evolution - they haven't been around long enough. Therefore it is a SOCIALLY INDUCED reaction - something we learn during the course of our individual lives.
There was no link, that I could see, to the actual study, so I have no way of determining if the actual scientists involved offered a better explanation/description.
Lastly, I think the author used "primeval" to mean "sexual." Which just brings me back to the title of this post.
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