Trying To Make Everyone's Day A Little More Surreal

Apparently Beatrix Potter was a botanist who discovered several new species of plants, and had some very advanced theories that were rejected due to her gender. They didn't put that in the movie...

http://crimitism.wordpress.com/2007/07/24/oh-do-let-us-have-tea-in-the-garden/

I've been offered a room in New Cross and I'm planning on taking it. I thought about moving, I looked at a room, and now I'm moving. It all went surprisingly smoothly.

The room's so cool because it comes with a study attached, which I can use as as a sewing room. glamgothruthy has always been very patient about me sewing in her sitting room, but it's not been ideal for either of us I think.

Things have been going well. I went to the theatre with Abi, and we made many interesting plans, some of which we may even execute. Was planning to go to hers and watch DVDs tonight, but the Victoria line's general inability to function has prevented me.
greeba came to visit, and it was lovely to see him again. We watched DVDs with the projector, as he refused to go out and play. Looking forward to him moving down to Guildford.
Went to see Phil, and instead of paying attention to him, read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows all evening. Must make up for that this weekend.

Got trapped in the bathroom for about forty minutes last night. The lock jammed. Most off-putting. Fortunately I had a book to read until it started working again. (for no apparent reason) And Ruthy gave me leftover chocolate cake from her party (we had to eat it! there was no room in the fridge!) so the evening was really quite acceptable as a whole, although I have a blister and a sore thumb now.

Interesting account here from a woman who went to a feminist comics convention dressed as Black Canary. (Black leotard, blond wig, heels, fishnets.)

http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=82

I'm a civil servant; they talk a lot about diversity here.
I love it; I wandered Westminster in battered trainers and am currently at my desk wearing a twelve year old t-shirt with a dragon on it.

One of the things we were taught at the (compulsory) diversity course was that there are lots of ways to discriminate.

A ruling against long hair, for example, could be a quiet way of discriminating against Sikhs. Refusal to accomodate part-time work or job sharing could be a way of discriminating against women or single parents. No jewellery? Well, there's a lot of religions that wear jewellery, even if it's not stricturally 'required' the way the Sikh bangle is. I've seen remarks like "there are plenty of other places for her to express her faith" and there are - at the moment. But if you tell a girl she can't wear what she feels is a religious symbol, on pain of expulsion, well, you've either thrown her out of the school, forcing her to find another, or you've forced her to give up what she views as part of her faith. Neither's good, and if more schools take up this uniform policy, where can she go? It's the kind of policy that leads to ghettoization - it was hugely damaging to the Sikh community in Britain, back when males had to cut their hair to find work.

The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days --
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

John M Ford

So close!
The first, say, four-fifths of this movie were pretty much awesome. Then the plot fell over and died. Silver Surfer so very very cool. Effects all very snazzy and don't overwhelm the plot.

Fairly sexist, but not abysmal.

Had a lengthy debate with Fluff on the way home; he wondered why I didn't care that there were virtually no women on screen (in general) that were anything other than an accessory/motivator for men. It was a question that foxed me.
I don't know, why should the movie world reflect the real world, where half the population are women? Why should I get to see someone like me blow shit up and be awesome? Why do I feel I have some kind of right to identify with the heroines and their struggles, instead of staring at them in bemusement and wondering what motivations these ciphers could possibly have?

Only men get to be represented, it seems.* And when people ask why I have a problem with that, my only answer is 'Jesus Christ, are you a moron? You appear to be functioning on a level of idiot naivete I cannot comprehend.'

This does not usually add to the debate; but I can't comprehend how people cannot see that, yes, it would make a difference if some of the supporting character were female *even though* the plot did not demand it. It would make a difference if the default wasn't male. It's not like it matters to you, does it? That's what Fluff said - it doesn't matter if this supporting character is male or female. So, I asked, they could have made him female, to balance the genders? Oh no, that would be silly, because it doesn't matter what gender they are.

Guess what? It matters to me.

Also, do strong, intelligent, ass-kicking heroines detract from the movie? Oh yeah, Mystique totally dragged the X-men films down. Ha ha. I loved her. I loved her with a passionate love, for her selfishness and her loyalty, her rapid thinking, her iron nerve, her ruthlessness, her willingness to use every resource she had, the way she put her trust in Magneto and he put his trust in her. She was gifted, and she was flawed. She was a person. I really loved that. Guess what? Making your female characters people can only add value to your film.


*Usually white, straight, able-bodied men. An issue for another day.

Apparently the planned US Embassy in Iraq will be bigger than the Vatican.

Why do women fear rape?

Well, this article might give you a clue.

http://pandagon.net/2007/05/30/she-did-this-to-herself/#comments

The main article is about a seventeen year old girl who was gang-raped while drunk to unconsciousness. She was rescued by two other girls at the party, who witnessed a man having sex with her while she was unconscious and covered in vomit. One of the 8-10 men in the room told the witnesses "She got drunk and did this to herself".

No charges are being brought.

Mentioned in the comments is the case of the three men who videotaped themselves raping a girl. One pled guilty, and got a light sentence. Two pled innocent - and were found innocent.

Women fear rape not only because it's a horrible thing to happen to one, but because it's rarely punished, and you as the victim can be blamed for it. Not only were you violated, it was your fault.

"One of the eight suspended baseball players, pitcher Chris Knopf, told the San Jose Mercury News on Monday: “From the beginning, I kind of felt like it was a witch hunt and the De Anza players were victims, and not really this girl."

Yeah. The victim was not the seventeen year old who was gang raped. It was the people who haven't even been charged with it.

Dressed up as an extremely stripy pirate and went to see Pirates of the Caribbean.

Utterly crappy, I'm very disappointed.

But Fantastic Four looked pretty good, and Transformers looks AWESOME.

WIkipedia describes David Blunkett as objecting to an episode of Brass Eye (but had not seen it either).

Well, he wouldn't, would he?

/childish

Related to the topic about penetration as a sexual verb a couple of weeks ago - the Spotted Hyena.

"Since it is impossible to penetrate without the female's cooperation, female hyena have full control over whom they choose to mate with."

From Wikipedia.

I have had half of one bottle of Cointreau and abigailb is judging me. And frankly I feel only RESPECT is due to someone who has drunk half a bottle of Cointreau and can still spell (and proofread) Cointreau and code their LJ coding correctly.
abigailb wishes to interject at this point. Aha! DENIED. You must examine her LJ for relevanct content, if you so desire.

Time to hit submit, and see if all the flowers are dead in my LJ garden.

I... don't get the whole pony thing. What?

http://lilycain.livejournal.com/3110.html

Springfest was both exhausting and soul-destroying. If I could choose one word to describe our performance as a branch, it would be 'Half-assed'. (This may be two words.) The banquet was excellent, thanks to our chef, and the incidental food and drink was fine, due to our... incidental food and drink handlers. The costume for certain of our NPCs was superb, thanks to stellar makeup and wigs by the lovely cyniborg.

The rest was pretty poor, held together by luck and bullshit. We got lucky; people didn't notice the holes, and the things that could have gone catastrophically wrong, didn't. I had to wait until the last minute to find out tabard colours, which meant the tabards were scraggly messes, the dancing organizer wasn't briefed until the week before, which meant she had to spend all Saturday doing it. The plot was all over the shop. A lot of costumes were quite poor.
The whole thing was a source of disappointment. To me, there isn't much satisfaction in other people thinking you did a good job; these days I get my satisfaction knowing that I, and the team I work with, did the best we could under the circumstances.
And we didn't. Not by a very long shot.

Still.
Have ordered some new books from Amazon on tailoring and fit; I see a new frock coat for the long-suffering Phil coming up. (Yes, I know I said that after Springfest I would not sew for a while. That was before I experienced Life Without Deadlines and remembered I like sewing.)
And getting a very early night tonight should enable me to go to abigailb's housewarming, which I am hellbent on going to even if I can't make B-movie. (I am still cold-ridden, so exhaustion is really not helping. Thank goodness I took Tuesday off; I was awake for a whole seven hours that day.)

Aaaages ago, a meme went around talking about rape; it contained the advice that you shouldn't advise women on how to avoid rape. There was some discussion on this topic.

There's a very interesting piece on the topic here.

"Left to my own devices, I never would have been raped. The rapist was really the key component to the whole thing."

Had a very nice weekend with Phil. We baked a cake. Then we ate it. I have been re-arranging my fabric, and doing sewing for Springfest. It is very boring, and makes my back ache. After Springfest, I will not sew for a while.
Yesterday was a good day; had a training day, had sushi for lunch in the sun, and went for cocktails in the evening. And today I had more training, finished at half-three, and am now eating calamari. It is not quite as nice as restaurant calamari, but there is a lot more of it. More sewing later. Bah.

Apparently women drive men to murderous rampages by not sleeping around enough. This is the theory of a prominent feminist... There is only one sensible response to this, and that is to have more sex with men who might go on a killing spree.

http://www.thechaff.com/2007/04/22/it-all-makes-perfect-sense-now/