forthwritten: by <user name="iconomicon" site="livejournal.com"> (skull & muscle)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki

John Hersey - Hiroshima - long but definitive read on suvivors' immediate experiences
Vibeke Venema - When time stood still: A Hiroshima survivor's story
Paul Ham - The Bureaucrats Who Singled Out Hiroshima for Destruction
Sarah Stillman - Hiroshima and the inheritance of trauma
David Samuels - Atomic John
Daniel Cordle - Hiroshima’s literary legacy: the ‘blinding flash’ that changed the world forever

Amnesty International and sex work

Alison Phipps - 'Disappearing' sex workers in the Amnesty International debate
jemima2013 - Invisible women

Other things

[CW: medical; explicit details of late stage cancer] Yasmin Nair - Gay marriage hurts my breasts
Gita Jackson - What a book about British wizards taught me about American blackness
Tansy Hoskins - How the Jack the Ripper industry distorts London's East End - being the child of a forensic psychiatrist I have read fairly widely on historical murder, crime and forensics; my opinion is that the Identity Of Jack The Ripper is the least interesting issue here (if I had to come up with some sort of Thing on Jack the Ripper, it would be contrasting historical forensics with present day and possibly near-future forensics). Would much rather see a museum about East End women's experiences ofc.

Other things

Alicorn - Double, double - what happens if a child is promised to not one, but two witches?
What happens if a Slytherin competed in the Triwizard Tournament
A favourite trope

*reluctantly takes out tiny pistol, drops it and sighs*
forthwritten: text:  "end rape culture, unlearn sexism, question gender, fight back" (radical queer feminist)
Oh dear, oh dear. Not been a good couple of weeks, has it? Yesterday I was linked to someone on twitter who insists she's GREEN not WHITE, she's TRANSCENDED RACE and all the WoC pointing out that privilege doesn't work that way are RACIST BULLIES. I rolled my eyes so hard they almost fell out of my head.

Ani DiFranco
For fsck's sake Ani, I want to like you. I've seen you live. I had a poster of you up in my bedroom. And then you want to hold a wildly expensive retreat on a former slave plantation.

Autostraddle: Out of Rage: Ani’s Not-So-Righteous Retreat
For Harriet: Dear Ani DiFranco Supporters: You Cannot Reclaim an Oppression You Have Never Experienced
Art that's smarter than its artist
Make Them Apologize: Ani DiFranco Says Sorry For Plantation Retreat But Many White Fans Still Won’t
The Toast: A Note From Ani DiFranco

For reference: Righteous Retreat cancelled and from ani - personally, the phrase "i have been thinking and feeling very intensely" makes me laugh and laugh but whatfuckingever.

Other race, feminism & social justice stuff
Reni Eddo-Lodge: On the Fallout from Women's Hour
Flavia Dzodan: Intellectual gaslighting or “Feminism needs a new intellectual voice”
Reni Eddo-Lodge: A Year in Black Feminism
"Whiteness" in Europe & Tumblr’s US-centric SJ Discourse
Black People Don't Go To Galleries: the reproduction of taste and cultural value

To finish with, let me link to Sara Ahmed's Living the consequences:
It can be difficult to have experience of being a feminist killjoy in the world and then to become part of feminism and be perceived as killing feminist joy! And this is how many women of colour experience feminist spaces. When you talk about whiteness, or mention race or racism as structuring your own experience, you get in the way of an occupation. You are accused of hurting white women’s feelings, and of causing divisions because you talking about divisions.

[...]

And as feminists most of the time we do not inhabit feminist spaces, which is probably why encountering the same problems in feminist spaces that we encounter in the world at large is so exhausting. And depressing: the walls come up in the places we go to feel less depleted by walls. Perhaps part of the difficulty of pointing out how power operates within feminism to structure who has access to feminist spaces is that those points are received by those who have more power. And that is quite a reception: you end up challenging people’s self-perception of themselves as critical of power.
forthwritten: Iroh (from A:tLA) in profile, sipping tea from a brown cup (Iroh/tea)
Biggest linkspam ever! I'm going back to Nottingham tomorrow and had over 300 tags open...

Women and feminism
The Mosuo Matriarchy: 'Men Live Better Where Women Are In Charge' - mixed feelings about this because it's an explanation of a culture by a) a man b) not from that culture, but it's an interesting glimpse.
Can men be feminists? - TW: rape apologism
Look, Kitten, I Am Too A Feminist! Fauxminism and Men - identifying problematic behaviours in male "feminists" which indicate that they don't really get it
Why Women Claim Public Spaces As Our Own - problems with men's participation in Reclaim The Night marches and how they might participate. I'm hesitant to take part in such marches because the harassment I experience is so rarely what cis and trans women experience, and it feels like it's a space for them that I don't have a right to. And I am totally fine with that.
Thoughts on the “Dark Side” discussions - geek feminism
Anatomy of an unsafe abortion
My Illegal Abortion
I debated whether or not to share this story - "So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share" (TW: threats of violence)
This is what it’s like to be harassed on the Internet (TW: threats of violence and rape)
Man versus beast - "My penis didn't come with an instruction leaflet, or even adequate washing instructions, but somehow I've brought the beast under control [...] What grates is the idea that all men are passive slaves to our sex drives, lumps of meat attached to our penises like a little old lady being dragged along the pavement by a Doberman in heat, rather than capable adults making conscious choices"
Organisational Response to Sexual Violence in Activist Groups: Six Common Mistakes
Confronting Partner Abuse in Activist Communities (.pdf) (TW: abuse and violence
Anna Carey: From the X case to Pussy Riot: why I'm still a feminist, 20 years on
How to be a Popular Internet Feminist in 2012: A Guide. - humour with a bite
Feminism – a spent force or fit for the 21st century?
The Kissing Sailor, or “The Selective Blindness of Rape Culture”
Rebecca Watson: It Stands to Reason, Skeptics Can Be Sexist Too - "I spoke out about sexual harassment among atheists and scientists. Then came the rape threats"
Jack Halberstam: Whither Feminism?: Gender and The New Normal

Feminism and intersectionality
Oh hi feminism, are we having this debate again? I think we are! It's not like this has been done before
Tiger Beatdown: Feminism has abandoned me
An open letter to Caitlin Moran
Bim Adewunmi: What the Girls spat on Twitter tells us about feminism
Stavvers: How to be better: on intersectionality, privilege and silencing
Caitlin Moran and Lena Dunham are great, but take note Vagenda - feminism isn't just a white, middle class movement
"Intersectionality", let me Google that for you
Rhian Jones: On things that surely shouldn’t need saying.
Black Feminists: Dear Vagenda Editors…
Chitra Nagarajan and Lola Okolosie: You don't need an MA in gender studies to know that race matters to feminism
Bitch magazine: Why I Didn't Run the Caitlin Moran Interview
Rebecca Omonira Oyekanmi: Caitlin Moran's comments are just one example. Too often our media sees only shades of white

And relevant to this discussion:
Why I Don't Want To Talk About Race - my god, an essay on TGMP that doesn't make mewant to stab thngs?
Black people can’t talk to white people about race anymore. There’s really nothing left to say. There are libraries full of books, interviews, essays, lectures, and symposia. If people want to learn about their own country and its history, it is not incumbent on black people to talk to them about it. It is not our responsibility to educate them about it. Plus whenever white people want to talk about race, they never want to talk about themselves. There needs to be discussion among people who think of themselves as white. They need to unpack that language, that history, that social position and see what it really offers them, and what it takes away from them
The Distress of the Privileged

LGBQA
Rob Watson: A Gay Dad's Perspective on the Hate-Note-Writing Father, and a Letter to My Own Sons
On "The Queer Art of Failure" - "Non-conformist queer perspectives offer radical alternatives to notions of "success""
Junaid Jahangir: We're Queer. We're Muslim. Get Used to It.
Orlando Cruz: 'I wanted to take out the thorn inside me and have peace' - "The Puerto Rican, who became the first boxer to declare publicly that he was gay, explains his long and traumatic struggle against fear and prejudice and his fight to be true to himself"
Sandi Toksvig: 'I don't understand boredom'
AIDS quilt goes digital
Ruth loved Naomi as Adam loved Eve - an interpretation of Ruth and Naomi as a lesbian couple
Poly, privilege, race, and class: New voices

Trans*
Paris Lee: Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)
Letters For My Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect - "an anthology of essays written by post-transition men who share the wisdom and guidance they wish they’d known at the beginning of their journey into manhood"
when mansplaining goes too far: buck angel on trans women
and its follow-up, on the “disclosure” myth and the cissexist imagination
Janet Mock on the Freedom of Telling Her Own Story
Stephen Burt: My Life as a Girl
Goodbye Katie, hello Ben - interesting perspectivefrom a parent but ugh, pronouns
Trans* publications by UK organisations
LGBT Students In Scotland Driven Out Of School By Homophobic And Transphobic Bullies - can I get a "fsck you, S_onewall"?
I'm not a girl, I just look like one: femme identity, gender and queerness
Who Is Who: Pronouns, Gender, and Merging Selves by Dana Levin
25 Things I Do To Make My Body Dysphoria Feel Smaller and Quieter
Free Hugs, or Markgraf’s Comic Convention Adventure - cosplaying as a non-gendered alien and the responses this elicits

Disability
Telling the story? The Commodification of Impairment and Disability in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone
The end of the affair: disability and feminism
Naomi J: The Relevance of the Bible (To Disabled People)

Academia
Martin Eve: Unpaid research internships reveal a dangerous hypocrisy in academia
Toward A More Inclusive Backchannel: An Unusual Call To Action
Mary Macfarlane: PhD Writing up: What I Learned
Check the ill Q&A behaviour - about Q&As at book readings, but goes for academic conferences too
'Postgraduate study is the next social mobility timebomb'
Academic Men Explain Things To Me
Twitter and safe academic spaces
Being Inappropriate - social media as an academic
Want to Change Academic Publishing? Just Say No - "If a for-profit business cannot prosper without demanding huge amounts of free labor, then surely the business model needs reinventing"
PhD education and mental health: A follow-up
Live-tweeting at academic conferences: 10 rules of thumb
£1bn-a-year 'black hole' in university funding revealed
My top 10 postdoc pick-me-ups

Trans* and academia
Trans? Disabled? In need of surgery? Best to avoid Warwick Medical School
Discrimination? You bet! What you might expect from Warwick Medical School?
On *the* Institution of Transgender Discrimination Within Healthcare
“Just Check ‘Female’”: Trans Women and Smith College Admissions

Politics
Read more... )

Hillsborough:
Read more... )

Language
Read more... )

Nature
Read more... )

Food
Read more... )

History
Read more... )

Interesting stuff
Read more... )

Stories and fic
Ursula Vernon: Elegant and fine - Susan, Narnia
A Study in Squawking - Sherlock AU
Amy J Williams (.png) - small snippet of a life. Amy, DW
calapine: Outside In - Eleven, Oswin, DW
lizbee: Detectives, Adventurers and Girls Who Don't Wait Around: The Paradox of Amelia J. Williams Amy, DW

Tumblrs etc
http://what-if.xkcd.com/
http://istwitterwrong.tumblr.com
http://stfu-moffat.tumblr.com/
http://wheninacademia.tumblr.com/
http://whatshouldwecalllinguistics.tumblr.com/
http://researchinprogress.tumblr.com/
http://penandink.tumblr.com/
http://100worstpeopleontwitter.tumblr.com/
forthwritten: (anti-everything)
Pussy Riot
Live blogging of the verdict
Guardian fanvid to Putin Lights Up The Fires (seriously, it's a fanvid, that's fscking adorable)
Amnesty International: Pussy Riot: a travesty of a mockery of a sham
Pussy Riot's closing statement
Manic Pixie Dream Dissidents - interesting look at the reporting of Pussy Riot and how they are simultaneously sexualised and infantilised in order to delegitimise their protest
From Pussy Riot, a lesson in the power of punk
Metal Vicar Rachel Mann: Why Jesus Would Have Been A Pussy Riot Fan
Get on the way, Pussy Riot!
Pussy Riot trial isn’t just about Putin
Meeting Pussy Riot
Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer is pure protest poetry

Assange
I loathe Assange. I like Wikileaks because it prioritises the data over personalities - it's an incredibly powerful thing. Julian Assange has made it All About Him in going on his round-the-world ego trip. It's both disappointing and rage-inducing to see the number of leftie men making apologies for raping people; the very faintest of silver linings is that it's becoming rapidly apparent who not to put your sleeping bag next to in an occupation.

All of the following are likely to be triggering for rape.

Assange, and feminism’s so-called male allies
Rape 101
Before the Law - legal issues surrounding Assange's current stopover in the Ecuadorian embassy
Stavvers: Dear George Galloway
A response to George Galloway, and what we mean by consent
Competitive rape defining

More sexism and misogyny
Who is Manchester Pride really for?
An Open Letter to Manchester Pride and Gaydar Radio
I Misspoke—What I Meant To Say Is 'I Am Dumb As Dog Shit And I Am A Terrible Human Being'
'Legitimate rape' – a medieval medical concept
Rebecca Solnit: Men Explain Things to Me - most recent mansplaining encounter: after Pride, some trans* tent people and various others went for a meal in town. I ended up sitting next to a random man I'd never met before, who proceeded to inform me of aspects of the history of English. Well, tried to; there was quite a lot that made me cringe.
"Yes," I said, "I actually teach this". I was going to start explaining where he was blatantly wrong when he abruptly changed the subject. Unfortunately he changed the subject to AI, and even more unfortunately he was sitting next to [personal profile] flippac. It made me realise that mansplaining is rarely about getting genuinely excited about something; as soon as this man encountered someone who knew more than he did about his current choice of topic, he shut it down. He didn't actually want to talk about that topic, he wanted to show off. And god forbid anyone might expose his lack of knowledge.

Other stuff
Why does the media still refer to “Bradley” Manning? The Curious Silence Around a Transgender Hero - this is more complicated for several reasons, namely the issue of using private logs. However, Manning is denied a voice and is unable to state their identity; there are also really problematic discourses of trans women being duplicitous and untrustworthy. Regardless of their gender identity, Manning is being treated appallingly.
Natalie Reed: “Harry Benjamin Syndrome” Syndrome
Neither Man Nor Woman: Meet the Agender - not sure why all the people interviewed are FAAB and why it focuses so much on bodies, but interesting article
S E Smith: Asexuality always existed, you just didn't notice it
Olympic suffragettes regroup for women's rights march on parliament - rather charming but "when the women formed a human scaffolding to carry a Christ-like Davison above their heads" is epic lols and I wish there was some way of shoehorning it into my current chapter
Humanities aren’t a science. Stop treating them like one. - as an empirical linguist working with quantitative methods I find this really interesting. In my experience, the big sweeping claims as illustrated in that article tend to be made by a) arts & humanities scholars who've suddenly discovered quantitative/computational methods or b) science-y people who've suddenly discovered arts & humanities. I've heard a fair number of papers where the response has been "yes, and how is this relevant?" because while it's been very clever, it's either telling arts & humanities people stuff they already know or stuff that's irrelevant. In my particular discipline people are very aware of the limits of quantitative work and we acknowledge the interpretive work done by the researcher. It's not unusual to use a triangulated approach of both quantitative and qualitative methods to benefit from the strengths of both and let them balance out each other's weaknesses; corpus linguistics and (critical) discourse analysis or conversation analysis are popular combinations for this reason.
Tom Morello: 'Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against' - "I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production?" A+ Tom Morello
Black Fish activists vow to confront illegal tuna fishing in Mediterranean
Friday Five: Things I Want to See in Doctor Who Series 7
Jinty, Tammy, Misty and the golden age of girls' comics
Fictional ghost cities: where teenage darkness finds a home - call me immature, but I love undercities and shadow worlds
The best parodies of Carol Ann Duffy's Olympic poem
http://bustygirlcomics.com/

okay now I am going to take the big rats out for another thrilling episode of Hoarding Drama and Is Grouting Tasty. I think everyone except Willow is in heat so we'll probably have a bonus round of Furious Humping. This is the joy these creatures bring to my life. Speaking of awful pets, here's Dog Shaming. Sample post: "I eat sheep crap and vomit on the carpet every. single. day".

voldesport, incoming!

Wednesday, 1 August 2012 02:11 am
forthwritten: (rock and roooooll)
Voldesport (or, That Which Must Not Be Named)
The Olympics – why it has all gone wrong - summary and lots of links
Tiernan Douieb: Don't Forget Its Your Olympics™ - corporate joy, oh great
London 2012: an etiquette guide for Olympics visitors
London Eye Olympic Twitter positivity lightshow launched. This makes me laugh and laugh; firstly, sentiment analysis Does Not Get sarcasm (could be a problem in the UK), and secondly, I give it a generous 15 seconds before it starts getting trolled.
This five-ring circus is only for those in love with white elephants
Catherine Baker: Can we build Jerusalem?: overthinking the Olympic opening ceremony
Olympic critical mass - report and pics
Climbers: A team of young cyclists tries to outrun the past - interesting profile of Rwandan cyclists

Academia
Freelance, part-time or fixed-term: is this the future of academic careers?
Why does it take so long to get my results? My guide to how your work is marked
http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/ - academic phrasebank; this looks immensely useful (am running out of ways to say "argued" and "claimed"...and it shows)
‘Freedom’ of Choice: Choosing the ‘Right’ University? - neoliberalism, the illusion of choice, and how it affects young academics
Ben Goldacre: Public engagement - a waste of money? Part One and Part Two
Nothing ‘Honorary’ about Unpaid Work
In Defence of Unpaid Academic Positions?
The Politics of Dissent - protesting against unfair working conditions as an early career researcher is risky
Making other plans - the grimness of academia as an early career researcher
How do academics read so many books? - as anyone who's seen my flat or, indeed, seen me carrying a book around in the vague hope some kind of reading-related osmosis will defeat the laws of just about everything and spontaneously occur, this is very familiar

Open Access
I wrote a bit about this on my Proper Blog, but I'm fascinated/excited/worried/somewhat appalled about the changes in academic publishing. I don't think this current model of publishing is sustainable and I get a little flash of rage whenever I see research council funded research available as wildly (and hopelessly) expensive monographs, but the Gold model of OA is worrying and has all sorts of deeply concerning implications.

Richard Smith: A bad bad week for access
Is the Academic Publishing Industry on the Verge of Disruption?
Can You Picture This? Academic Research Published as a Graphic Novel! - not strictly OA, but intriguingly different way of publishing research

Politics and protest
Going Private: my reply to a job offer from a private health company - superb response to being headhunted for a private healthcare company
Refused access: fighting for the right to travel on the buses - disabled people being treated appallingly
32 die a week after failing test for new incapacity benefit
Skwalker1964: The lie of 'unaffordability': The foundation of the welfare state and the real 'structural' problems - am not an economist so can't assess its reliability, but looks interesting
Why David Cameron is the ultimate "seagull" manager - "He flies in, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everyone from a great height, and then flies out again"; also features an unsettling photoshop of a seagull w/ DCam's head.
NHS among developed world's most efficient health systems, says study

LGBQ and trans*
We happy trans*: how an apology from someone I had never heard of left me in tears - how to do an apology
Laura Jane Grace: 'So I'm a transsexual and this is what's happening' - some problematic language; one response here. I'd really like to see an interview with Grace by an interviewer who's knowledgeable about trans* and gender issues. She strikes me as really articulate and thoughtful about her identity, gender, transitioning and so on - it's disappointing that she's so often let down by her interviewer
"Yo" as a gender-neutral third person(?) singular pronoun
http://theyismypronoun.tumblr.com/
For Money or Just to Strut, Living Out Loud on a Transgender Stage and Janet Mock's response, Trans in the Media: The New York Times' Warped Portrait of Trans Women
Unpacking the Media Coverage of My WeHappyTrans Video - analysis about how and about what trans* people are allowed to talk about

Interesting stuff
Bikers Against Child Abuse make abuse victims feel safe - trigger warning for child abuse and sexual assault
http://actuallythisismaleprivilege.tumblr.com - excellent take-down of things like "female privilege is not being seen as a pervert for watching porn" and "female privilege is having hundreds of love songs written about you"
Terry Deary: The man behind the Horrible Histories - I loved Horrible Histories when I was younger. They suffer from "always more complicated" but were enjoyably gory and subversive
On Bardugo's Tsarpunk, Worldbuilding and Historical Linguistics - as a linguist, thinking too much about language in fantasy etc settings makes my head hurt. But why do spells sound suspiciously Latinate if this is a world with no Roman Empire and therefore no Latin as a lingua franca of the elite, and therefore not the prestige language of scholarship? This might be why I have no friends.
A Bone Here, a Bead There: On the Trail of Human Origins
The British abroad: expats, not immigrants - British people are rubbish at assimilation should they emigrate to another country, yet demand it of immigrants to Britain. Also, if you're brown you can't be an expat
Immigrants: Hello, world
The Rumpus: Revising the Revisionists - history being written and rewritten on a city
Can the Guardian survive? - interesting look at press economics
They Don’t Make Feminists This Outrageous Anymore - interesting interview with Caitlin Moran
How-to guide to circular Gallifreyan
Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride: pioneers who inspired generations of women - Earheart and Ride, plus other women to look up to
Science: It's a Girl Thing! - The Problem & Solution
Tim and Freya - a couple's relationship breakdown as witnessed by a full train carriage and live-tweeted by a passenger

more links

Sunday, 8 July 2012 01:35 am
forthwritten: painting of a person's head with clouds filling it and a tiny city and park floating on the clouds (remembrance)
Ridiculous number of tabs again.

Politics
NHS cuts map - see what's getting cut or put out to tender in your area!
The Locations and Ranges of London's Olympic Missiles - basically, they're not pissing around.
Black Feminists: Real Britannia
This “great” society was built on the backs of colonised communities all over the globe, of whose diaspora continually contributes to the British economy and workforce. The Jubilee celebrations do not reflect this fact. Neither do they reflect the toil and sweat of British people of all races struggling in a class system where social mobility is further grinding to a halt.

The Jubilee is being used to unify Britain, but a very particular type of Britain and for a vast amount of people, that Britain is as alien to them as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in its original English.
Julie Burchill: Once we had anarchy in the UK. Now all we have is monarchy in the UK
Banking scandal: how document trail reveals global scam
Dear America: You Should Be Mad As Hell About this - charts showing levels of unemployment and wages, and simultaneously huge gains for the rich.
It’s Really Kicking Off In Quebec - few weeks old now, but detailed information about the political, economic and cultural context of Quebec's student protests.
Dennis Skinner: 'I was formed in the pits and the war'. I especially like the correction: "This article was amended on 18 June 2012. The original referred to the idea that Cameron's privileged background might inform his politics and mitigate against empathy for the poor. This has been corrected"

LGBQA
Outside, Over Here: the Queerness of Maurice Sendak - "he articulates a liberatory vision of direct, open communication about bodies and relationships, to allow kids to freely learn and understand themselves and those around them. In keeping with the ‘universalizing’ mode of queer politics, he does not make this depend on identifying “gay youth” or “queer kids” – it’s something for everyone"
Making Our Own Movements: Queer Activism in the Gay Marriage Era - I admit that I'm a bit grumpy on the issue of gay marriage. I recognise that it's important to lots of people, but it's so very far from my queer battles.
Beyond Marriage: Democracy, Equality, and Kinship for a New Century
But having said that, here's the Royal College of Psychiatrists' response to the government's equal marriage consultation. Not good on the T, but interesting and depressing for LGB stats.
Femmetech: Deprivileging In/visibility - talking about how invisiblity fails people and introduces the concept of being "alienated from" rather than "invisible"
What Queerness Means To Be - I'm kind of put off by the implication that LGBA people don't understand these things, particularly when it comes to non-binary identities, but I liked this bit:
Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.

Queer doesn’t mean “don’t label me,” it means “I am naming myself.” It means “ask me more questions if you curious” and in the same breath means “fuck off.”
Eurovision Song Contest: The truth about gay life in Azerbaijan
Nothing Can Be Said of Being Butch, and, related, Amy Fox. Her essay, “Changed Sex. Grew Boobs. Started Wearing a Tie.”, doesn't seem to be available online, but I liked this response to it.

Gender: trans*
Transgender Inclusion for LGBT Aging Organizations - while specifically aimed at orginations supporting older adults, this is a pretty good list of things to consider in trans* inclusion.
S/he - about parenting trans* children. I'm kind of wary about articles focusing on the parents rather than their trans* children. This one is interesting but there were still bits where I felt like shouting "no, it's not about you and your discomfort, it's about your child's health and continued existence."
Ceridwen Troy: How to Kill a Transperson - TRIGGERS FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST TRANS* PEOPLE. A reminder that murders of trans* people do not happen in a vacuum, but are part of a system that consistently dehumanises us.
A little more on conditional privilege - "If you are doing this and have assimilated, your privilege can and will likely be revoked if people discover your history [...] Conditional privileges are those contingent on your willingness to participate in oppressive structures, either by choice or by accident (since it isn’t always a conscious choice to participate). It is hard because we all must make devil’s bargains with our oppressors if we want to live and we all live in ways that make us complicit in someone else’s oppression."

Gender: women
Men Rule Media Coverage of Women’s News - "In media reports on women’s issues—abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood—men are quoted around five times more than women, a new study shows"
http://fatuglyorslutty.com - abuse directed towards gaming women. TRIGGERS FOR VIOLENT SEXUALISED THREATS.
This is what online harassment looks like and Man disagrees with woman, makes game about punching her - Anita Sarkeesian tries to raise money for researching "tropes vs women in videogames", gets torrent of misogynistic abuse. TRIGGERS FOR VIOLENT SEXUALISED THREATS.

Health
Why our food is making us fat
My moobs and me: growing up with gynecomastia
Why I perform abortions: A Christian obstetrician explains his choice

Food
mushroom bourguignon - I am going to make this. You're all invited. Except you. Not after you did to the cushion and my garlic crusher.
How to stir-fry vegetables - Grace Young also looks a little like my mum.
The Lego cake - because this one is very, very good.
Saipan Cakes - pancakes in amazing shapes
An 1875 Arctic Ale tasting

Interesting stuff
Obituary: Count Robert de La Rochefoucauld - former special forces soldier and member of the French Resistance. Best line: "Don't try to lock him up. He escapes, you know".
Lipstick names — a textual analysis
http://fosslien.com/job - this is an interesting and clever set of graphics about preparing for a job interview. Even if "job interviews" are kind of laughably thin on the ground, hello workfare.
40 of the most powerful photographs ever taken

links

Friday, 25 May 2012 11:17 pm
forthwritten: Iroh (from A:tLA) in profile, sipping tea from a brown cup (Iroh/tea)
Okay, another huge collection of links. INCOMING.

Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is, Follow-up, Comment on Comments, Final notes. I think everyone and their dog has linked to this. I did grin a bit at how much I'm not playing at the very easiest level. Not the hardest by any means, but not the easiest either.

Pick your battle: a practical guide to social activism - it's written as an introduction but more experienced activists will probably get something out of it too, and is clear, direct and explains issues without over-simplifying them.

Race
Sepia Mutiny’s Closure Is a Reminder: Blogging While Brown Ain’t Easy - “Just writing and covering and talking about racism daily is exhausting and really emotionally taxing,” Peterson [editor of Racialicious] adds. “I think people don’t realize that we aren’t desensitized—reading about these horrific things happening or reading yet another mind-numbing report on how systemic racism screws us all does get to us.” Yes. If I've ever taken a step back from activism, it's never been because I've stopped caring - it's because I've exhausted myself.

Gender: women
The D for Dalrymple Questionhair results – preamble and defence, Gender, Age, Geography - blogger's curiosity morphs into huge survey.
Safer spaces, false allegations, and the NYC Anarchist Bookfair [TRIGGER WARNING - sexual violence] "Drawing up a safer spaces policy for your event, organisation, or space is easy enough, but deciding what happens when someone violates that agreement is clearly a controversial issue. I don't think anyone has, yet, come up with a clear, easily replicated model for dealing with these issues in our communities and networks"
We Are All Nuns - I kind of have complicated feelings on nuns but it's nice to see an article acknowledging them
Suzanne Moore: The Second Sexism is just victim-envy - I confess; I haven't read the book, and indeed, this seems like amazing publicity for it. Ho hum.
What WOTC says to its female audience (and what we hear)
The Great Wall Of Vagina – it’s in London, it’s amazing and y’all might enjoy checking it out
@unfortunatalie: Gendered marketing really gets on my tits

Gender: trans*
Trying to change your pronouns on facebook? - I'd be interested in hearing if anyone's managed this.
The Genderbread Person v2.0 - simplistic, but clear way of breaking down different components of gender and sexual identity
30+ examples of cisgender privilege
New study finds genderqueer people face unique patterns of abuse and discrimination - hardly surprising, but one of the problems is that there's so little data. Which leads to...
Trans Mental Health and Well-Being Survey - open to a wide range of trans and gender variant identities, so do check if you're able to take part
On Laura Gabel and transphobia in 'alternate' scenes
Verb Hunting for Genderqueers - how to describe "the process genderqueers go through to become themselves", or to align their physical bodies more closely with their gender identity

Intersections
Autostraddle: Five Small Contributions: On Being A Queer Person of Color - "To have a conversation about race is too singular. And to have a conversation about being a queer person of color? Oh, girl. That is an encyclopedia of conversations, stories, dialogues, whatever. And by encyclopedia, I mean the whole set"
Call for Submissions From Muslim-Identified QPOC - also those who "practice another religion, faith, and/or spirituality that you feel isn’t as readily discussed in public forums, such as Hinduism or Sikhism, Wicca, African Traditional Religions, Baha’i etc"
Beenie Man releases YouTube video proclaiming support for gay rights - "controversial dancehall star becomes the latest in a string of formerly hypermasculine musicians to evolve on gay rights".

Politics
So now we know whose fault the recession is. Ours - "We're looking at the beginning of a new narrative: it's mainly the fault of the last government. But if it's not their fault, it's your fault. Those hard-working families we love to talk about? You weren't one of them. I clearly saw your kid watching Pokémon. Nobody was even trying to make anything they could sell in Brazil"
Beneath the Wig: And I am not making this up… - why the Human Rights Act 1998 is pretty great really
Neil Kinnock, 1983: "I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old."
Solidarity and its discontents - "how to rethink a practice of transnational solidarity that does not homogenize entire populations, cast struggling people outside the US as perpetual and helpless victims, or perpetuate unequal power relations between peoples and nations. Acts of solidarity that cross borders must be based on building relationships with activists in disparate locations, on an understanding of the different issues and conditions of struggle various movements face, and on exchanges of support among grassroots activists rather than governments, with each group committed to opposing oppression locally as well as globally [...] We are calling for a rethinking of what internationalism and international solidarity means from the vantage point of activists working in the US. Internationalism has to start from below, from the differently articulated aspirations of mass movements against state militarism, dictatorship, economic crisis, gender, sexual, religious, class and ethnic oppression, in Iran, in the US and all over the world."

Various pdfs I have open
Sayaka Osanami Törngren: Methodological Reflections on Being an East Asian Researcher Researching the White Majority
A Gender Not Listed Here: Genderqueers, Gender Rebels, and OtherWise in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey
Rosalind Gill: Breaking the silence: The hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia
bell hooks: Understanding Patriarchy
Campaign for Real Farming: FARM ASSURANCE SCHEMES & ANIMAL WELFARE. How the standards compare 2012

Interesting stuff
How luck ran out on Leonardo da Vinci's science studies - I'm fascinated by da Vinci's ability to draw what he saw without trying to force it into contemporary understandings of anatomical theory.
Alice Roberts: 'Leonardo saw the body as a complex, beautiful machine'
New England Journal of Medicine: Two Hundred Years of Surgery - warning for some pretty graphic descriptions of amputations pre-anaethesia.
Biomedical ephemera

...maybe I should have called this section "gruesome medical things".

Repatriating tribal remains to California
BBC Nature: video collections - not sure if there's access outside the UK, but there's fascinating stuff here. Sea kraits hunting in packs for example.
Jem Bloomfield: Sherlock Recap: ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ - "The BBC Sherlock splendidly captures the tingling sense that everything around us is brimming over with secrets if we could only see them. And of course in this version we can actually see them. Sherlock sits humming at the intersection between our sulky obsession with the Victorians, our fascination with the idea that information is in the very air we’re breathing, and our fear that other people could use that information to harm us. There’s a lot to be beguiled by in this series."
Sophie's series of Sherlock recaps: A Scandal in Belgravia, Hounds of Baskerville, The Reichenbach Fall. I nearly hurt myself laughing.
25 words that simply don't exist in English
The Loneliest Whale in the World - poor whale :(
In the pipeline: Things I won't work with - fascinating chemistry blog about dangerous and/or explosive chemicals

Whenever I've needed to cheer myself up this week, I've looked at Food Critic Puppy. There, you're welcome.

more links

Wednesday, 25 April 2012 11:17 pm
forthwritten: (anti-everything)
Time to close some more tabs!

Science:
The science police - postmodernism, social scientists borrowing terminology from mathematics and hard sciences without knowing what it means and academic rucks.
Homeopaths on homeopathy - homeopaths in their own words. It's hard to laugh at this because ffs, they're advocating homeopathy for HIV and malaria

People being awful:
TRIGGER WARNING FOR TRANSPHOBIA AND TRANSMISOGYNY: An Open Letter to the National Center for Transgende​r Equality on the Cotton Ceiling Debacle
TW FOR TRANSPHOBIA AND TRANSMISOGYNY: Adrienne Rich and transmisogyny: We can begin by acknowledging that it matters
TW FOR RACISM: Mamie Till's warning still holds true in a racist world - black parents are forced to weigh children's self-esteem against their safety
When life hands you cancer, make cancer-ade: via lemonade stand, 6yo boy raises $10K for dad's chemo - this is not a cute story; it is a disgrace

Gender:
Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming People Among First, Most Affected by War on Terror's Biometrics Craze
LGBQA:
Life Without Sex: The Third Phase of the Asexuality Movement
Thoughts on the Ben Cohen Foundation - after Ben Cohen spoke at NUS LGBT 2012. Sweatshop labour used to produce goods for an anti-bullying campaign
Where do we go from here? Addressing conflicts within LGBTQ etc. communities - after recent debates about relations between bisexual and lesbian women
Queer to the Core - Gay punk comes out with a vengeance
I was wrong about Don't Ask, Don't Tell - yeah, I'm not sure campaigning for the right to become part of the military-industrial complex was that awesome either
Becoming Loveless: Autobiographical Story about A Hopeless Aromantic

Academia, pedagogy and education:
Whose academy? Academic feminism, privilege and the Age of Austerity
How Academics Can Become Relevant, or: Intellectual Accessibility by Availability and Design
The future of learning and teaching in higher education
The history boys and girls - I am wary of any claims of a"golden age" in pretty much anything and this is a particularly snobbish way of looking at autodidactism
Why must so many go it alone? - Pursuit of an academic career forces many scholars to make personal sacrifices that are bad for them and for the profession
Claire Warwick: Should women fail? - I am reminded of the saying that feminism will have triumphed when a mediocre woman has exactly the same chance of getting a job as a mediocre man.
Fewer jobs and lower pay: Black graduates pay price in jobs crisis as majority fail to find work

Feminism
Stavvers: Das erotische Kapital: a comprehensive review of everything wrong with Catherine Hakim’s Honey Money
Susan Gubar: A Feminist Professor's Closing Chapters - The professor and feminist critic uses literature to understand life—and death
Mary Beard: Too ugly for TV? No, I'm too brainy for men who fear clever women

Politics:
Stella Creasy: 'You can see a perfect storm coming' - Labour MP for Walthamstowe campaigning against payday loans
The war on terror is corrupting all it touches - Every student agitator is a terrorist, every internet hacker, cafeteria dissident, freedom fighter and insurgent leader
Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes and George Monbiot: Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them
Italian museum burns artworks in protest at cuts - "Our 1,000 artworks are headed for destruction anyway because of the government's indifference," he said.
Adventures at A4e - positive thinking will magically create jobs in a recession! yeah! ...no, fsck you.
The questions Rupert Murdoch must answer at the Leveson inquiry
A Better NHS: What’s in a name? Patients, clients and consumers

Linguistics:
Votes and Vowels: A Changing Accent Shows How Language Parallels Politics
Ghana calls an end to tyrannical reign of the Queen's English - language ownership, prestige, flexibility and creativity
Why I’m Not Proud of You for Correcting Other People’s Grammar - grammar, creativity and fluency

History:
A familiar shout in Titanic film spurs search for Arab passengers - evidence that Arabs were written out of the Titanic's history
What Happened to the Iceberg That Sank the Titanic?
TitanicRealTime was an interesting experiment in real-time historical event storytelling, although they laid on the foreshadowing a bit thick. In the truest traditions of the internet, it did not take long for this account to appear.
Representing Sara Baartman: Introduction; on Show and in the Museum; in Racial Science

Christianity:
Was Jesus gay? Probably - part of me is "aaaww", part is "that's an interesting point", and quite a lot is "trollololol"
Vatican orders crackdown on 'radical' nuns in the US; Leader of 'radical' US nuns rejects Vatican criticism; The Threat of Women’s Autonomy: The Vatican’s Crackdown on Nuns - I want to point to these nuns whenever someone wishes to inform me that all Catholics are homophobic anti-choice conservatives

Awesome stuff:
Mind-boggling XKCD April Fools comic
Scenes from Luke Skywalker’s childhood if Darth Vader had been a good dad Ceefax: a love letter - programmed to look like Ceefax pages <3
Oversized and over here: Sea Odyssey Guide - giant puppet storytelling in Liverpool
The Oatmeal: State of the Web Spring 2012

cleaning out my tabs

Sunday, 1 April 2012 05:46 pm
forthwritten: (boy reader)
I have almost 70 tabs open, argh.

KONY2012
I'm sure you're aware of the deeply problematic nature of KONY2012, but these are some links that I found interesting. I don't have much to say – and as a non-Ugandan, why should I have anything to say worth listening to? – but I do think it's incredibly important to be aware of whose voices are foregrounded and those whose voices exist only in the background, in carefully edited clips, or are not heard at all.

KONY 2012: Causing more harm than good
Visible Children: KONY 2012, viewed critically
African voices respond to hyper-popular Kony 2012 viral campaign
Sisters of Resistance: Racism, Invisible Children and the Kony2012 Viral
Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things)

Gender
Trans erasure in the news - a look at standard and erased trans narratives in news discourse
Natalie Reed: A beginner's guide to trans-misogyny
Natalie Reed: Seven things about being trans that are actually kind of awesome
Hi, I'm single, but I'm genderqueer and you don't know what that means - read this on a bad day and it rang painfully true
Bodies, Busybodies and Butchered Science - newspaper reporting on pregnant trans men
My complicated mourning: RIP, Adrienne Rich - mourning someone's feminism and acknowledging their transmisogyny
Two colours in my head - blog about gendered products for children
The Epicene Pronouns: A Chronology of the Word That Failed - list of gender neutral pronouns, not sure I'd agree that they've failed though – they might not be in common usage, but they have opened up space for debate and, indeed, existence
Writing Henrietta Lacks Into Herstory - "However, just as much as we need to question the politics of who writes Henrietta Lacks into our herstories, we need to know her name and story"
Venus with Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women
http://fuckyeahbinders.tumblr.com – photos, tips, experiences (prob NSFW)

Sexuality
A boy to be sacrificed - growing up gay in Morocco
The cultural significance of asexuality - Google ngrams (blargh) but interesting exercise in showing how the concept of asexuality is necessary for the concept of sexuality to exist
http://takebacksexuality.tumblr.com – sex, sexuality and People With Disabilities (prob NSFW)
The Ultimate Guide to Silicone Sex Toys – With Metis Black of Tantus, Inc

Pedagogy & academia
Negotiating multiple identities in teaching; focusing on the professional and the caring
Feminist classroom ethics — sexual violence, re-victimization, & tough conversations - focused on teaching literature, but interesting questions about "where and how do we ensure that those conversations are open as places for education and healing without re-victimizing the very students we want to help?"
Making it like a riot-grrrrl - Digital Humanities, a critical look at the hypermasculinised set of practices associated with a DIY ethic and the disruptive riot grrrl ethics of "feminist intervention, self-fashioning, and cultural production".
Why all our kids should be taught how to code - a radical manifesto for teaching coding
social theory undergrads - why is social theory so hard for students?

UK politics
Every morning I check twitter and depress myself all over again.

Life under the Tories: don't say you weren't warned
The war on the poor and Caitlin Moran's superb column on a childhood on benefit
Sickness benefit: 'They try their damnedest to avoid paying' and The truth about how we’re deprived of benefits, from inside Atos…
Diary of a Benefit Scrounger: Happy Mother's Day! - reads like a dystopia but it's reality and it's happening now

Other things
New Left Project – Rebel Music #5: Manic Street Preachers
China Mieville: Oh London, you drama queen
POC Anti-Racist Organizing and Burnout
More Catholics rebel against hierarchy’s homophobia. Related to this, the April Fools that I want most of all to be true: Catholic Cardinal: Church will relax its approach to civil marriages for gay couples
This Valentine's Day, Occupy the Romantic-Industrial Complex - bit late, but still interesting
http://lovelybike.blogspot.co.uk – not my style of bike, but some interesting thoughts on cycling and might be of interest to some
I Didn't Tell Facebook I'm Engaged, So Why Is It Asking About My Fiancé? - facebook algorithms and our relationship to the machine
http://100poetryforms.wordpress.com – I like the writer's thoughts on the relationship between form and creativity: "I think using a poetry form, especially a prescriptive one like the sestina, adds structure and stability and, while your conscious mind is busy juggling word lengths and keyword sequences, your subconscious is all the more free to come out and play".
The Making of Ethan's Viola - slideshow guide to the process of building a viola
Tim Minchin: Playing In F Major, Singing In F Sharp - my favourite bit about this is the argument in the comments about the existence or non-existence of various keys
Wittgenstein’s Ph.D Viva — A Re-Creation (pdf) - I lolled
http://manarchistryangosling.tumblr.com - offered without comment
Planning Ahead Can Make a Difference in the End - asking a physicist to speak at your funeral. Science is beautiful and, as this shows, surprisingly comforting
forthwritten: (cogs)
I have a lot of tabs open.

Politics:
Max Pemberton: Read this – and prepare to fight for your NHS
"I support the NHS is because countless pieces of international research have shown it to be the fairest and cheapest way of providing health care".

NHS privatisation: Compilation of financial and vested interests.
This list represents the dire state of our democracy. The financial and vested interests of our MPs and Lords in private healthcare. Why are these people allowed to be in charge of our NHS, to vote on a bill that they clearly have something to gain from. Who cares that they have put it in the register of interests. This doesn’t excuse their interests, it merely highlights clearly why they should have no part in voting for the privatisation of the NHS. It is privatisation, despite the media’s continued use of the word ‘reforms’. The question must be asked. Are they public servants or corporate servants?
Alan Moore: Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous
Today's response to similar oppressions seems to be one that is intelligent, constantly evolving and considerably more humane, and yet our character's borrowed Catholic revolutionary visage and his incongruously Puritan apparel are perhaps a reminder that unjust institutions may always be haunted by volatile 17th century spectres, even if today's uprisings are fuelled more by social networks than by gunpowder.

Some ghosts never go away.
Patrick Stewart: Domestic violence blighted my home. That's why I support Refuge
It saddens me beyond description that women and children experiencing domestic violence today are being left to deal with fear and abuse on their own – just as my mother was, more than 60 years ago. The government says that its ambition is "nothing less than ending violence against women and girls", but there is nothing ambitious about its relentless demolition of a sector that protects the most vulnerable members of our society.
Understanding the Occupy Movement: Perspectives from the Social Sciences
Round-up of essays, analyses, reflections, dispatches, lectures etc on the Occupy movement.

LGBTQA issues:
Among the asexuals and related to this, Asexuality Studies.
I think asexuality-as-a-concept is particularly interesting when it highlights the norms and assumptions of (queer) cultures. I've come to realise that I experience queer culture in a different way to others and it can be a very lonely place.

Juliet Jacques: A brief, incomplete history of trans people in the media
Not really all that incomplete, and a really good summary.

Media FAIL in Coverage of Study on Gender Conformity and Abuse
Interesting categorisation of patterns around trans coverage in American mainstream press.

Paris Lees: Change Is Possible
Now. It’s time. We must not be bullied. We must be angry. We must mobilise. Our friends must join us, but it starts with you. Today. We can no longer kill ourselves. Instead, we must give birth to a better world, one which celebrates our natural diversity. We can live in that world. You have seen, in recent years, that determined minds can achieve great things. Yes, change is possible; we of all people know this. But only you can make it happen.

Now.
Thesis: The Illogic of Separation
MA thesis exploring US focus groups' understandings of gender neutral bathrooms

Homosexuality in the Quran

Short stories:
ILU-486
HELLO THERE. WE HEARD U NEED THIS.
DON’T WORRY, WE LOVE YOU.
EVERY PART OF YOU BELONGS TO YOU.
Chilling near-future dystopia.

Kij Johnson: The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change
It's a universal fantasy, isn't it?—that the animals learn to speak, and at last we learn what they're thinking, our cats and dogs and horses: a new era in cross-species understanding. But nothing ever works out quite as we imagine. When the Change happened, it affected all the mammals we have shaped to meet our own needs. They all could talk a little, and they all could frame their thoughts well enough to talk. Cattle, horses, goats, llamas; rats, too. Pigs. Minks. And dogs and cats. And we found that, really, we prefer our slaves mute.
Interesting stuff:
Aaron Bobrow-Strain: What Would Great-Grandma Eat?
Fascinating post about food and bread and how these link to "unspoken elaborations of who counts as a responsible citizen and how society should be organized".

What is cultural appropriation?
Clear examination of the power dynamics that make cultural appropriation "appropriation" rather than simply borrowing.

Ocean trench: Take a dive 11,000m down

Let's Read Some Cory Fucking Doctorow
Critical and funny reading of Little Brother. I'm beginning to suspect more and more that my life will not be made 1000x better by reading this book.

Anthropology’s Guns, Germs, and Steel Problem, From the Archives: Savage Minds vs. Jared Diamond, Taking Anthropology 1, Jared Diamond and Shine on you crazy [Jared] Diamond
I've read most of Guns, Germs and Steel and was mainly troubled by how neat it all seemed. Savage Minds have had a long-running engagement with the book and why it's not good anthropology, and it's somewhat reassuring to know that your hunch is borne out by Proper Anthropologists.

I’m having a blogsistential crisis! I am a blogger. And I am an academic. But am I an academic blogger?
Interesting thoughts on blogging as an academic and how this might relate (or not) to work

omg self, go to bed

Wednesday, 4 January 2012 02:11 am
forthwritten: (hand//sky)
I have a massive collection of tabs that I don't want to lose, so thought I'd dump them here. Sorry?

Protest:
The protesters seem more adult than politicians and plutocrats
Who is truly the more adult: the protesters or an establishment that regards itself as older and wiser? The protesters have largely been very decorously behaved. They have thus far displayed no propensity to riot or to loot. Their tents are erected in rather neat rows. They hold laboriously consensus-seeking meetings at which they keep minutes and take votes. Their spokespeople are polite and articulate. If they do not have all the answers, they are at least posing some of the right questions. I don't see why they should be criticised for the absence of a manifesto when the leaders of Europe spent months quarrelling and flailing over the euro crisis before scrabbling together an expensively botched compromise.

The protesters shun formal leaders and hierarchies – and I also don't see why they should be criticised for this at a time when conventional leaders and hierarchies have been so conspicuously useless.
Occupy London could be protected by Christian ring of prayer
Christian groups that have publicly sided with the protesters include one of the oldest Christian charities, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the oldest national student organisation, the Student Christian Movement, Christianity Uncut, the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and the Christian magazine Third Way. In addition, London Catholic Worker, the Society of Sacramental Socialists and Quaker groups have offered their support.

A statement by the groups said: "As Christians, we stand alongside people of all religions who are resisting economic injustice with active nonviolence. The global economic system perpetuates the wealth of the few at the expense of the many. It is based on idolatrous subservience to markets. We cannot worship both God and money."
I think the links between Christian groups and the protests are potentially interesting. There's a history of left-wing/socialist/radical social critique and social justice work in Christianity and it's a shame? disingenuous? frustrating? that this isn't given more attention. Helping out at a homeless shelter isn't very newsworthy though; however, making horribly conservative and heteronormative statements about homosexuality/abortion/marriage/gender is. I'm sure I wasn't always this cynical...

American Paki - Why I Am Not Protesting at Occupy
I don’t protest at Occupy because I know that my name has long existed on some intelligence database and I do not know what on earth it will be used for and how I will be targeted because of it – especially if I begin to show my face more regularly protesting at my local encampment.

[...]

As tempted as many white Occupy protesters are to proclaim “we are all one and the same!”, you cannot expect minorities, whose communities have been subjected to intimidation and abuse, to suddenly throw away the race card and jump on the bandwagon. These are critical times, and as such, it is important for Occupy to get it right. We are all part of the 99% – and the concerns of some should fast transform into the concern for all.
Paul Mason - Global unrest: how the revolution went viral
Paul Mason wrote Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere a few months ago and has expanded these ideas into a book.
For the first time in decades, people are using methods of protest that do not seem archaic or at odds with the contemporary world; the protesters seem more in tune with modernity than the methods of their rulers. Sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris calls what we're seeing the "movement without a name": a trend, a direction, an idea-virus, a meme, a source of energy that can be traced through a large number of spaces and projects. It is also a way of thinking and acting: an agility, an adaptability, a refusal to accept the world as it is, a refusal to get stuck into fixed patterns of thought. Why is it happening now? Ultimately, the explanation lies in three big social changes: in the demographics of revolt, in technology and in human behaviour itself.
Encountering Tear Gas & Pepper Spray, OWS Defending Against Tear Gas (image) and Survive a Mace Attack
Useful for some protesters - be aware of what the police force you're likely to come across are authorised to use.

Trans:
Binary Subverter - To Parents
I'm still mulling this over, but I found it really interesting.
This isn’t about presentation- although it's infuriating as hell that we still live in a world where it’s exceptional for any child to be free in how it presents, this should seriously be the norm- this is about gender. The most masculine trans woman in the world can feel social dysphoria. The most feminine trans man in the world can still feel like he isn’t free to express himself. Because that’s just it. I wasn’t allowed to express myself - by calling me a girl the message was that I was only free to accept myself if myself was a herself, which it wasn't. That masculine trans woman wasn’t allowed to express herself, only a non-existant "himself", that feminine trans man wasn’t allowed to express himself, only a non-existant "herself".
Janet Mock - Trans Day of Remembrance: A Letter of Blessings to my 16-Year-Old Self
Now, more than a decade later, I look at how lucky I was to get to walk out of that car. I now know the world can sadly be a cruel place. I could have been hit or beat or killed. A victim of a hate crime, one that could have been deemed a mistrial due to the trans panic defense, one where my family would have no closure, one where I’d be buried as a boy because no one but my friends knew my dreams of womanhood.
Fucking tired of arguing with people about using they as a singular pronoun
Always useful to have ammunition for this :D

Other stuff:
Queer and Then?
At its best, queer theory has always also been something else—something that will be left out of any purely intellectual history of the movement. Like "I want a dyke for president," it has created a kind of social space. Queer people of various kinds, both inside and outside academe, continue to find their way to it, and find each other through it. In varying degrees, they share in it as a counterpublic. In this far-too-limited zone, it has been possible to keep alive a political imagination of sexuality that is otherwise closed down by the dominant direction of gay and lesbian politics, which increasingly reduces its agenda to military service and marriage, and tends to remain locked in a national and even nationalist frame, leading gay people to present themselves as worthy of dignity because they are "all-American," and thus to forget or disavow the estrangements that they have in common with diasporic or postcolonial queers.

That effect has been possible not just because of the theories themselves, but because of the space of belonging and talk in which theory interacts with ways of life.
I'm pretty much as much of a baby queer theorist as it's possible to get but I did like this essay and am attracted to queer spaces, both physical and intellectual, for similar reasons.

Mysterious paper sculptures in Edinburgh. Gorgeous and imaginative and with a message about the importance of the arts. Well worth a look.

Couple of Doctor Who links: Doctor Who and its Discontents: Part I - Moffat, Misogyny and the Problem with Pond and Fixing Doctor Who – Season Five Edition. I love that someone's outlined an alternative S5 with themes and character development and narrative arcs. No, I do.
forthwritten: (anti-everything)
Do we want some more links on the riots and their aftermath? I think we do! I was in Nottingham city centre this evening and saw two police officers patrolling, three police vans stuffed with cops to an almost comedic degree, and one dog unit van.

Two perspectives on Riot Wombles:

Dr. Sofia Himmelblau: #riotcleanup or #riotwhitewash?
In the case of London today it is a certain underclass that the state seeks to rhetorically denigrate and cast out, the very people who are already under attack from all sides in terms of a hostile media, benefit cuts, unemployment, lack of jobs, lack of housing, lack of educational opportunities and police racism and aggression [...] [T]he British state attempts to cast a whole class of people as enemies within, responsible for all manner of society’s ills through their ‘feckless’, ‘immoral’ and ‘animalistic’ behaviour. In doing so they seek to create a group that all of those who are ‘all in it together’ can hate equally, and around which the illusion of the big society can coalesce. This reveals the big society as the bourgeois project that it always was all along – defined in opposition to an excluded underclass for whom the public services and welfare that it seeks to dismantle were essential. The underclass now serves little purpose for the ruling elite or the bourgeoisie other than as a conveniently excluded Other, usefully legitimising the Right’s authoritarian entrenchment of state power whilst ex-progressives look on cheering and waving brooms in the air.

Laurie Penny: Demonising the young won’t heal our cities
As panicked politicians with little understanding of social disorder fight to reclaim the narrative, it is vital that we resist the easy story of "us" and "them".Because the truth is that it's all "us". The disorder will continue until we acknowledge that the young people who rampaged through Manchester, Liverpool, Brixton, Tottenham and 50 boroughs of London are as much a part of the "real Britain" as those who nobly came out the next morning to clear the debris from their trashed high streets. The language of "true Brits" defending themselves against a feral underclass is precisely the language of social division that predicated these riots.

General riot-related links:

Guardian liveblog including Parliamentary debate

David Cameron’s new best friend - WARNING: RACISM
Call me over-sensitive, but I'm not sure that having this guy leading a vast army of angry cheerleaders for the Metropolitan Police is going to be all that constructive over the days ahead in healing the nation's wounds and restoring the force's battered reputation among ethnic minorities. And I'm pretty certain it's not someone the Prime Minister of the country really ought to be singling out for praise. Can anyone imagine him doing it if the exact same group with the exact same message had been run by, say, Nick Griffin?

There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored
Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country.

An open letter to those who condemn looting: Part 1, Part 2
This one's long and I admit I haven't read all of it, but that bits I have read seem interesting.
It is brutal that people are so cut off from access to bare necessities that they have to sell drugs and are consequently jailed for life for doing so.

It is brutal that a family watches their home burn because of a riot.

It is brutal that police shot first.

It is brutal that people need to defend their stores with baseball bats, in fear of losing them.

It is brutal that people have to spend their lives working in those stores, in fear of losing them.

None of these are mutually exclusive. They are all true. But it is precisely that notion of restricting dissent and struggle to "politics" that performs the operation of grouping them into sides, such that you could balance and weigh them.

They are incommensurable. They are also consequences of the same set of relations that make it extraordinarily difficult for much of the world to live.

Riot psychology
I’m no expert and I’ve been watching the UK riots from 5,000 miles away from the safety of Colombia (a sentence I never thought I’d write) but it strikes me that most of the rioters probably never thought of the police as a legitimate force to begin with.

This goes beyond establishing police legitimacy on the day and means many of the standard assumptions of behind crowd control probably don’t work as well.

But the fact that thousands of young people across the country don’t have faith in police is a much deeper social problem that can’t be solved through street tactics.

The UK riots and language: 'rioter', 'protester' or 'scum'?
Some agreed it wasn't easy to choose the appropriate terminology. "They are suffering from high taxes, low income, unemployment and high prices ... Should they be called rioters or protesters?" tweeted one user. But the majority objected forcefully to the word protester, and many were not even happy with rioter. Dee Modha thought "thugs, hooligans and opportunists" would be better words, while Chris Sutcliffe, abandoning all niceties, urged everyone to "start using the correct word. Terrorists."

That may seem excessive. Choice of words very often implies a subjective judgement, as the Guardian's own style guide, on the word terrorists, points out. It adds: "We need to be very careful about using the term", and suggests alternatives – militants, radicals, separatists – that may sometimes be more appropriate.

Again, no easy answers. I am deeply concerned about suggestions to evict any who was directly involved, or whose children were directly involved in "disturbances" and calls to remove their benefits - there are also calls to bring back capital punishment, the death penalty and National Service.
Maybe it's just me being a silly leftwinger here, but isn't making people homeless, even poorer and even more desperate going to create problems rather than solve them?

the cities are burning

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 05:28 pm
forthwritten: (hand//sky)
"When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, riots in Nottingham then. I'm glued to twitter for updates; I'm decidedly not glued to facebook.

I find it desperately sad: the small business and shop owners who have seen their livelihood go up in flames, the people who have been killed or injured and their families, the water cannon that the government has sanctioned despite their inappropriateness for fast-moving riots, and the kids and young people who live without hope and dignity or respect, who don't see any future.

Guardian liveblogs

If the rioting was a surprise, people weren't looking
On Saturday, instead of imploding and turning inward and violent among themselves, as they have been doing for the past decade, the youths exploded. The trigger may well have been the killing of Mark Duggan and the insensitive treatment of his family, but this has been brewing for some time. The government cuts – especially the withdrawal of EMA; the new barrier of tuition fees; and rising youth unemployment have all added to their sense of isolation and lack of a stake in society.

Who are the rioters? Young men from poor areas ... but that's not the full story
Kast gave the example of how territorial markers which would usually delineate young people's residential areas – known as 'endz', 'bits' and 'gates' – appear to have melted away.

"On a normal day it wouldn't be allowed – going in to someone else's area. A lot of them, on a normal day, wouldn't know each other and they might be fighting," Kast said.

"Now they can go wherever they want. They're recognising themselves from the people they see on the TV [rioting]. This is bringing them together."

Penny Red: Panic on the streets of London.
Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

It is interesting to look at how poverty and desperation fuels the riots - here's a map of the riots superimposed onto a map of deprivation.

Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs – but so do riots
It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped. Savagery is a possibility within us all. Some of us have been lucky enough not to have to call upon it for survival; others, exhausted from failure, can justify resorting to it.

London rioters point to poverty and prejudice
He said politicians were the real criminals, and pointed to a 2009 expenses scandal in which several lawmakers were revealed to have cheated the taxpayer out of thousands of pounds.

"The politicians say that we loot and rob. They are the original gangsters. They talk about copycat crimes. They're the ones that's looting, they're the originals," he said.

The UK riots: the psychology of looting
Between these poles is a more pragmatic reading: this is what happens when people don't have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can't afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea: "Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it. So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you're dealing with a lot of people who don't have the last two, that contract doesn't work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they're rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can't afford it."

I also note a quote that's going around: "Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets." [ETA: this quote is satire, but the Bullingdon Club, to which both David Cameron, George Osbourne and Boris Johnson belonged, has a reputation for trashing the restaurants they dine in]. Not a gang of hoodie-clad youths, but our esteemed Prime Minister and his mates. So, Mr Cameron, what's it like to be a young man smashing things up and setting fire to things without fear of the consequences? I bet it's the parents.
forthwritten: text from a pulp novel cover: "I told you...you have nothing of wickedness" (wickedness)
David Cameron to end 'state monopoly' in provision of public services
David Cameron is to "completely change" public services, bringing in a "presumption" that private companies, voluntary groups or charities are as able to run schools, hospitals and many other council services as the state.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph about the plans, to be published in a white paper in the next fortnight, the prime minister says he is seeking to end the "state's monopoly" over public services, with only the security forces and judiciary exempt.
NHS turmoil is just the start of Tory ideology run wild
Democracy will scarcely get a look in. People can't choose if services are contracted out. Once contracts are signed, nothing can change. You can throw out rascally councillors or governments, but the contracts will go on regardless. Like PFIs, they will be traded as financial instruments, sliced and diced according to risk and sold on. This sets a nuclear bomb under all public services, because there can never be any going back. If you don't like the sound of this, Cameron's government can be voted out but it will be virtually impossible to return services to a public realm that no longer exists. Ownership of the contracts and companies moves on, and the public sector loses any capacity to take them back.
Like many people who've spent time volunteering, I don't think charities taking over public services can work. To quote from a comment I made elsewhere, I don't think that individualised philanthropy works as a system - it certainly hasn't in the past - and that's why people introduced state welfare. You just have to look at medical charities to see why it doesn't work - dementia research and mental health research are underfunded because they don't affect cute children and aren't flashy enough. Look at Victorian ideas about the deserving and undeserving poor and how they still resonate.

And speaking as someone who has done volunteer work, it's really really important to have committed people. Someone doing a couple of hours here and there is great, and I've done stuff like that - redecorating a women's refuge, helping with a community garden, picking up litter - but usually you need consistency and a time commitment from volunteers. You can't run a library if all you have is a few people willing to do a couple of hours here and there when they have time; you need people who can commit to a rota and say they can definitely do Thursdays 3-5pm. If you have people relying on you, you can't treat volunteering as a little hobby - it becomes more like a job. That's why people get paid to do these things.

However, the following article argues that "volunteering is a red herring. The big society is really about replacing universal public services with a postcode lottery". While we're getting angry and focusing that anger on the big society, Cameron and his party have been quietly getting on with something else.

David Cameron's 'big society' may seem a big joke – but don't be fooled
The media's obsession with volunteering has obscured the bigger picture. If we look at what the prime minister is actually saying and doing, volunteering isn't especially important to the big society. Of course Cameron approves of it, everyone does, but none of the hundreds of millions being used to float the big society is ringfenced to encourage volunteering. Instead anything up to £300m has been made available to a social investment bank to provide capital funding (at market interest rates) to "social ventures"; while £100m goes to a "transition fund" that will assist those charities losing existing contracts with local authorities.

The real voluntary sector has little to do with this. Directors of smaller voluntary organisations and charities live in terror of debt and are often constitutionally barred from taking it on. Only organisations expecting very high turnovers will find this useful. Cameron has not raised an army of volunteers. He has launched an armada of service provision companies.

Volunteering was only the third prong to the big society mentioned by Cameron in his Observer article. The first two were "devolving power to the lowest level so neighbourhoods take control of their destiny" and "opening up our public services, putting trust in professionals and power in the hands of the people they serve."

What does this mean? These sentences have attracted little attention, but combine them with the bank and the transition fund, and the true purpose of the big society becomes clear. Neighbourhoods now have the choice to pay to have their own park cleaned, their own library or leisure centre staffed, even their own streets patrolled by private security guards. They also have the choice as to who should be providing these services once state or local authority provision has all but gone.

[...]

If taken to their logical conclusion, these policies mean that affluent neighbourhoods can have all the amenities they want, the best living environment, the best services, without having to share their council tax payments with the poorer people down the road. Less fortunate areas will fester for lack of cash. Then, when they do, this can be portrayed as their own choice and their own failure. "So you couldn't pay for it?" the voices will say: "Then why didn't you just volunteer like we suggested?"
I don't think I have the words.
forthwritten: (hand//sky)
Today I protested outside the city Atos offices. It was a sobering experience; we could see how long the assessments took, we could see how people struggled to even get to the place, and, perhaps most soberingly, we could see how little people cared. We gave out about 15 leaflets during the day, despite trying to engage with people, and a mere six people turned up to leaflet. Able-bodiedness is only a temporary state; even if you don't believe in "organised compassion", don't you want to be supported if you're hit by a car tomorrow?
The sardonically named Diary of a Benefit Scrounger has an idea for a silent protest

I think people are starting to think more about a multi-faceted approach. The government are cutting fast and hard at all sorts of services, and trying to sacrifice one to save another won't work. I really liked [personal profile] sebastienne's post on this where she argues that
to engage in direct resistance, to simply say "no, don't do this", is to stay on the road that has been chosen for you, but to try to push back against the flow of traffic, the direction of power. Whoever wins, you lose, because you've allowed those in power to define the terms of the discourse, and your endpoint is still a point on their road. It is far better, therefore, to strike off the road, to show the other way as best you can".

[...]

The very idea that we must choose a cause to fight, resist the single cut that is the most evil, and stay true to that campaign, is our defeat. We feel it, because the size of the whole project terrifies us, but to come to the place where we choose we have already implicitly accepted so much.
Against the “Right” to Protest: dissent is not a commodity makes a similar point that "protest is not heritage. It is not a “right” to be invoked when threatened. It is a disruptive action designed to fundamentally challenge structures of power". When we accept things like pre-planned routes, collaboration and clearance by authorities, and the careful management of protest so it doesn't disturb anyone, it also means that we accept someone else's terms and, both literally and metaphorically, stay on their road.

The Deterritorial Support Group has some interesting ideas around similar themes of how to resist fighting on anyone's terms but our own.

So yeah, I'm thinking our protests have to be less wildcat and more feral. Keep them unpredictable and creative and startling, keep them on our terms and not on anyone else's.

Speaking of creative, I came across this amazing, amazing fanvid for Jurassic Park. From the dinosaurs' point of view. Sometimes I fscking love remix culture.
forthwritten: stained glass spiral (Default)
Am still alive, just not inclined to update much. I have loads of links but even looking at them depresses me. I'm going to a meeting/conference on combating the cuts tomorrow so might have something

Education & research:


Reality checks - academia and the ivory tower
What is the best universities can hope for in 2011?
A Nature for the Humanities

Disability:


The Broken of Britain
Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
One Month Before Heartbreak - please please read this article about the blogswarm if you can
Drastic cuts have been announced in the UK to help reduce the monetary deficit. The proposed cuts appear to disproportionately target the more vulnerable members of society, including disabled people. When the cuts were first announced the government freely admitted that they hadn’t carried out a full analysis of the likely impact on disabled people.

[...]

The consultation that’s currently ongoing about Disability Living Allowance reform ends on 14th February 2011. Which is Valentines Day, traditionally a day for love but which could severely affect disabled people if DLA reforms aren’t handled correctly. We need to ensure that our voices are heard. We’re holding this event a month before the consultation ends in order to raise awareness of the consultation and give people to chance to respond to it if they wish
[personal profile] happydork has a good summary of proposed changes and things she and others were unable to find in the report

Related issues


Forest of Dean protesters fight big woodland selloff
Mark Kennedy: A journey from undercover cop to 'bona fide' activist

Interesting stuff


The Ghosts of Old London
Secret London: inside the Black Museum
Really cleverly done Guide to the Open Internet
Vietnam's massive cave
Cordelia Fine and the battle of the sex differences

And finally, a lyrical, thoughtful, uncomfortably honest short story by Kij Johnson, "The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change".

My Fawcett Society tshirt came yesterday - "I've got Millicent tendencies", child's 7-8. Damn right I'm cool.
forthwritten: my punk would last - from wordlist of NME reviews corpus (punk)
I've mainly been sleeping, reading and being fed for the past week. My current tactic with one of my chapters is to stay away from it, then look at it with fresh eyes so I can identify and fill the leaps that are perfectly logical to me but need explaining to anyone else. Hopefully I won't completely forget what I meant...

I also have loads of tabs saved and it's bothering me, so have some more links:

cut cut cut back:
Radical NHS reforms to go ahead

Harsh reality of spending gap challenges vow to protect NHS

So, basically, dissolving Primary Care Trusts and instead putting money directly into the hands of consortia of GPs. Who usually don't want to handle large budgets and will presumably outsource it to the private sector. Who will demand to be paid for their services and will inevitably lead to a postcode lottery and different treatments offered throughout the country. Yep, I'm sure that will end well.

University funding to be cut before increase in tuition fees
The universities minister, David Willetts, is expected to announce that the cuts, which government sources acknowledge could be up to £400m – 6% of the universities budget – will begin next April, 12 months before the new fees regime begins.

By not synchronising the timing of the cuts and the introduction of fees, the government appears to be opening another front in its battle to reform higher education. Some universities have warned they might have to declare bankruptcy because of the cuts, as many would be unlikely to be able to charge the kind of fees that would recoup the money they will no longer receive from the government. There are also questions about the quality of the courses on offer as universities struggle to operate with less income.

The Tory-led government has risked a rift with the Liberal Democrats by slashing 40% from the universities budget and making an 80% cut to the teaching budget.
I would like to headesk repeatedly.

Welcome to the 'chaos theory' of government
The desire to create an upsurge in community involvement is so self-evidently admirable that the coalition's political opponents and commentators find it hard to criticise. But it is also difficult to buy into as a solution to society's problems, particularly at a time of austerity.

The New Yorker magazine recently took a long, detailed look at the coalition's "big society" plans and could not resist a measure of scepticism. "Cameron envisages a garden-fence government in which little platoons of concerned citizens, unhindered by senseless regulations and sclerotic bureaucracies, band together to conceive and execute the governance of their own communities," it said.

The magazine likened it to "Wikipedia government, collectively created by the impassioned, the invested or the bored".
False Economy: What Do The Experts Say?
“A Harvard economist said to me recently that the coalition government's fiscal deficit reduction programme is the biggest macroeconomic experiment in an advanced country in any of our lifetimes - and this was before the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October. He argued that no government, unless forced to, would be dumb enough to take such unnecessary risks with the well-being of the nation.

“Every other country will be watching, he said, to ensure they don't repeat the same mistake as George Osborne's wildly unnecessary, misguided, doctrinaire and potentially dangerous spending cuts. They've let the Chancellor jump off the cliff first.”

fight fight fight back:
Taking sides in a riot - the difficulty of reporting a protest.

Kettle tactics risk Hillsborough-style tragedy
A senior doctor has warned that police risk repeating a Hillsborough-type tragedy if they continue with tactics deployed during the recent tuition fee protests.

The anaesthetist from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, who gave medical assistance to the protesters, said that officers forced demonstrators into such a tight "kettle" on Westminster Bridge that they were in danger of being seriously crushed or pushed into the freezing River Thames.
The Broken of Britain - disabled activists and the anti-cuts campaign. There's also a UKUncut guest post by Lisa J. Ellwood, disability & mental health activist.

What next for the UK's student movement? - ten concrete suggestions for what to do next.

UKUncut have some great guest bloggers and there's an article here on the political significance of UKUncut.

Student Theory has some in-depth discussion from a PhD student's perspective on the theory and practice of protesting, and Critical Legal Thinking has a post on Geographies of the Kettle: Containment, Spectacle & Counter-Strategy.

Finally, two resources: Tech Tools for Activists and Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents (.pdf)

other stuff:
The ethics of the superdairies - I find Raymond Blanc's perspective interesting as someone trying to juggle sustainable food, restaurant finances and customer satisfaction.

until we are all equal - huge list of trans resources

http://genderplayful.tumblr.com - genderqueer ("androgynous, unisex, butch, dapper, femme, gender-bending, gender-transgressive, and gender-fanflippingtastic") marketplace needing donations to get up and running, faq here

Disability Research Forum

Favourite culturally untranslatable phrases - I think the thing I find most interesting here is that some languages do have similar phrases, "fscking ants" and "sodomising flies" for example.

Student protests

Friday, 3 December 2010 12:42 am
forthwritten: (do no evil)
Fourth student protest planned for eve of Commons vote
The National Union of Students has announced plans for further mass student protests on the eve of a crucial Commons vote on university tuition fees.

The union has called for students across the country to begin demonstrations on 8 December.

A further rally by students and union officials is planned on the day of the vote before the group lobbies MPs inside Westminster in an effort to persuade them against voting for a rise in fees.

If the vote passes, the NUS said it plans to organise a vigil with 9,000 candles, representing the government's controversial plans to raise tuition fees by up to £9,000 a year.

The student movement evolves
Britain's new youth movement has evolved. The white-hot energy that exploded at Millbank three weeks ago has cooled into a hard-edged organising tool, making links with Trade Unions and anti-cuts groups up and down the country. What started as a riot has become a movement. At UCL, one of the movement's strategic hubs, serious-faced teenagers take detailed notes and man the phones to liaise with the media whilst others are already at their laptops, getting the word out via Twitter and Facebook about what's happening on the streets. These young people have been underestimated - by their parents, by their teachers and lecturers, and by successive neoliberal administrations -and that underestimation may yet shake this government to its core.

University goes to court to evict sit-in protesters
Lawyers for UCL attended the high court yesterday to request an injunction for "unlawful activities", which they hope will be granted today. The university called on up to 200 students to vacate the campus by 11am today, despite the Education Activist Network announcing today another day of action on 11 December, urging parents and teachers to join.

Protesting against the cuts is pointless
It is sometimes suggested that there is little protest against the cuts, except from students and schoolchildren, because adults are too craven and apathetic to stand up and be counted. The truth is that they are too wise to waste their energy on something so silly. Protesting against the cuts is like protesting against water's stubborn habit of flowing downwards. Pointless, unless you are a committed anarchist, in which case everything is worth protesting against.

It's not the most coherent of arguments and I think she fundamentally misunderstands that these are not protests over all cuts. They're protests urging us to scrutinise the cuts - what is being cut, where it's being cut, why it's being cut and who will be affected by the cuts.

Which, incidentally, The Fawcett Society is doing:
Of the £8 billion pounds worth of cuts made through changes to tax and welfare in the Budget, 70 per cent are set to come from women’s pockets.

The Fawcett Society believes such a skewed budget could not have been drawn up in accordance with the law. We believe the Treasury did not, as is required by law, consider whether their plans would have a disproportionate impact on women and affect women’s equality.

On Monday, lawyers on both sides will present their arguments to a judge, who will decide whether or not to grant us a judicial review of the budget.

**JOIN US TO PROTEST OUTSIDE THE HIGH COURT**

12.30 pm - 2pm, Monday 6th December, Royal Courts of Justice, the Strand, London WC2A 2LL

And finally, some advice on how to support an occupation (tweet if you want to retweet it). Food, supplies, the use of the room(s) as teaching space and solidarity are all very much welcomed.

Some links

Friday, 9 July 2010 01:53 am
forthwritten: painting of a person's head with clouds filling it and a tiny city and park floating on the clouds (remembrance)
Transactivist: Desirability. There's no one bit I want to quote in isolation; it's about transphobia, gendered expectations of behaviour, beauty, attraction and desire. Also a rather offensive poster campaign from the NHS.

Fashion and accessibility
So how do you enjoy something when, whether intentionally or not, you’re left out of it? Good question – one I’m still trying to untangle in my head, while re-tooling my wardrobe so that it realistically fits my wants and needs, but still has some sort of aesthetic that I like. And here’s another one – what would make for more accessible fashion?

Signal boost: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS – Occupied Bodies: Women of Color Speak on Self-Image – Deadline October 15, 2010
I am soliciting essays for an anthology on women of color’s self-image/body image as shaped by family, friends, media, society, history, lived experiences, etc. I’m looking for smart, accessible, and snappy personal narratives that also offer nuanced analysis of the underlying constructs that affect how we perceive ourselves. Exploring intersectionality of identities is extremely important. I particularly want the voices of women of color that are not often heard to be represented, such as trans* WOC, disabled WOC, queer WOC, WOC outside the U.S., WOC with eating disorders, working class/poor WOC and fat WOC. Of course, all the varied perspectives any woman of color can offer are welcome.

Why Twitter's New Earlybird Account Is Pure Genius. Thoughts on monetising twitter using a subscription account for time-sensitive deals. Seems like an interesting idea - it doesn't seem particularly intrusive (as with a lot of advertising) and seems to work with the site's function. Who knows how it will work out, but it seems like a more elegant idea than e.g. limiting number of subscriptions for free users.

solstice

Tuesday, 22 June 2010 08:56 pm
forthwritten: (spring leaves)
I love this time of year. The sky is blue, the trees are green, there are long lingeringly warm golden evenings, it's not fscking raining. Last night I cycled to the supermarket in the evening and the sky was the colour of gold and pink champagne in the west at ten to ten when I cycled back. Today I fell asleep in the garden and kind of changed colour in the sun. I have been messaging friends with Proper Jobs (i.e. [personal profile] gavagai) with "I can sleep in the sun and you can't, jealous yet?".

Also, the food. I have just finished a mug of mint tea, made with mint from the garden. Last night's dinner was pasta with peas, pea tips, the last of this year's English asparagus, goat's cheese and olive oil. I have new potatoes and raspberries in the fridge. I want (and maaaybe intend) to eat my own bodyweight in chlorophyll and frolic in the sunshine and feel smug about not going an unfortunate shade of lobster-red. Whoo summer!

Other things that are making me happy:

Effing Dykes. Kind of adorable really - cheerfully sex positive, gleefully rude and sometimes quite thoughtful and tender. Also, pictures.

Cutest story ever about a hand-raised starling who lived until he was 19 and seemed to have had a happy, playful life.

Awful Library Books. [personal profile] luciente and I were on the phone while we were going through these and howling with laughter. Hypnosex! Sex Lives of Animals Without Backbones! Outdated technology!

A song from Mulan. I haven't even seen this film but [personal profile] gavagai made me watch it and yay, "super-efficient demonstration of the artificiality of assigning traits as belonging to a particular biological sex!"

The rats sprawling in amusing positions. Asha has taken to sleeping on her back in a litter tray. I mean, it's cute, but sometimes I feel compelled to poke her to just to make sure she's still alive.

links &c

Sunday, 18 April 2010 12:22 pm
forthwritten: (hand//sky)
I have recently been drunkenly wandering around various counties (i.e. Hampshire and Surrey), somehow managing to help win a pub quiz (I KNEW my ability to recognise Tilda Swinton's face would come in useful one day), stumble upon a dogging site, be privy to a mild spat over the aesthetics of Guildford's cathedral and help cook an epic meal for seven.

I have thus far failed to do any work on my scarily imminent presentation (donotthinkaboutthat, donotthinkaboutthat) but have mixed up my very first batch of straights rat food - i.e. from scratch, mainly grains, legumes, dried vegetables and herbs, dried shrimp and some fortified human cereals. It looks so much nicer than any commercial mix I've bought for them and hopefully they'll eat it all, so will cut down on waste.

Anyway, links!

Signal Boost: Don't support Clitoraid or Betty Dodson
In the abstract, reversing FGM sounds like a fine idea. In the concrete, though, this campaign avoids some important questions, such as what is the effect on the lives of African women within their communities? What do women who have experienced FGM want, specifically, from their genitalia and their partners? What actions are African communities already taking on this matter? How do African women feel about having their body parts advertised for adoption? Why, in short, are you doing to African women and for African women but not with African women?


Size six: The Western women's harem
Yes, I thought as I wandered off, I have finally found the answer to my harem enigma. Unlike the Muslim man, who uses space to establish male domination by excluding women from the public arena, the Western man manipulates time and light. He declares that in order to be beautiful, a woman must look 14 years old. If she dares to look 50 or, worse, 60, she is beyond the pale. By putting the spotlight on the female child and framing her as the ideal of beauty, he condemns the mature woman to invisibility. In fact, the modern Western man enforces one of Immanuel Kant’s 19th-century theories: To be beautiful, women have to appear childish and brainless. When a women looks mature and self-assertive, or allows her hips to expand, she is condemned as ugly. Thus, the walls of the European harem separate youthful beauty from ugly maturity.

Western attitudes, I thought, are even more dangerous and cunning than the Muslim ones because the weapon used against women is time. Time is less visible and more fluid than space. The Western man uses images and spotlights to freeze female beauty within an idealised childhood, and forces women to perceive aging – the normal unfolding of the years – as a shameful devaluation.

Really interesting essay on beauty, space, time, and power, and clear-eyed about the implications. I've often wondered just how much energy women devote, or are supposed to devote, to looking acceptable slim and youthful and beautiful, and what this energy and time might otherwise be used for. But I think the implications here go further and are more disturbing.

Manic Pixie Songwriting Dream Girls, A History in Youtube and Published Slur
[T]he continuing emphasis on female musicians’ musical or personal weirdness — often overemphasized, or just blatantly made up in the mind of music journalists — serves to give said music journalists good cover for not talking about any of those girls’ actual, technical accomplishments, and for implying that basically all girl musicians birth albums directly out of their vaginas without giving it a second thought.


Dorothy L Sayers wrote about Lord Peter Wimsey meeting Sherlock Holmes and it's kind of adorable really.

links &c

Friday, 22 January 2010 02:43 pm
forthwritten: (hand//sky)
Have had a relatively productive couple of days. The other day I went to a careers thing and afterwards networked like a good little postgraduate. This basically meant sitting around in Mooch with a couple of other postgraduates, being cynical and eating chips.

Yesterday I corrected 10,999 words of early twentieth century court cases. I did learn what a "long pull" was though - giving someone more than an Imperial measure of beer. I still don't exactly understand why getting a pint and a gill of beer rather than just a pint is a problem. Have concluded that I am not cut out to be a lawyer.

Anyway, links!

Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken over America

Bit of a messy article and I'm not quite sure if the links she makes work for me, but I don't disagree with her conclusion:
What the election and the global embrace of Obama's brand proved decisively is that there is a tremendous appetite for progressive change – that many, many people do not want markets opened at gunpoint, are repelled by torture, believe passionately in civil liberties, want corporations out of politics, see global warming as the fight of our time, and very much want to be part of a political project larger than themselves.

Those kinds of transformative goals are only ever achieved when independent social movements build the ­numbers and the organisational power to make muscular demands of their elites. Obama won office by ­capitalising on our profound nostalgia for those kinds of social movements. But it was only an echo, a memory. The task ahead is to build movements that are – to borrow an old Coke slogan – the real thing.


Through that article, I found out about Absolut No Label, in which a brand of vodka
challenge[s] labels and prejudice about sexual identity. There are too many labels associated with the LGBT-community and with this initiative we want to find a way around them. We have launched a naked bottle with no label and no logo, to manifest the idea that no matter what’s on the outside, it’s the inside that really matters

I don't know, I just feel quite weird about a big brand hosting those kind of discussions, and it's hard not to see this as a clever marketing ploy to seem cool and edgy (and, of course, lure in the pink pound). I think I still distrust brands who try these sort of publicity stunts - I'm always wondering why they're doing it, what's in it for them.

If Haiti is to 'build back better' and help not hinder Haiti both discuss how to help Haiti. The Red Cross blog discusses how unwanted donations can be both indirectly and directly life-threatening:
First let me debunk a couple of myths, starting with the principle that “anything is better than nothing”. Trust me, it’s not. Relieving suffering should be guided solely by need and not what people have to donate. Humanitarian aid should also ‘do no harm’. Quite a lot of harm is done when unwanted and unneeded fresh food items rot in piles at the airports and seaports, stopping medicines and blankets getting through.


Why I Think RaceFail Was The Bestest Thing Evar for SFF
The way I see it, RaceFail was the big thaw for the SFF field. Fans of color, and white fans who were tired of the old ways, literally heated things up with an outpouring of long-pent rage. That fury was utterly necessary, because it shocked the whole genre enough to make it pay attention. Without that, SFF would have remained resistant — frozen — against such radical ideas as why are all these futuristic stories full of white people, when they’re already a minority on the planet now? and y’know, maybe erasing the brown people from your fantasy continent, or making them allegorical orcs, is a bad idea.


She Pop: Madonna Is Your Dorm Room Poster, And Further Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation
When Madonna takes on Catholicism and Christianity, she's subversive in a way that betrays an understanding you can only get by growing up Catholic and/or in a culture where Christianity is privileged. When she takes on "Eastern spirituality" (huh? There's only one of those now?) it's less about commenting on it than claiming it for herself, whether or not she understands it at all. And she doesn't, apparently, so it winds up an offensive mess.

Kind of wish I'd been able to articulate this when Ray of Light was released; it's not that I think it's wrong to comment on religions, it's just that you tend to have to be intimately familiar with them to say something interesting.

Finally, Airbrushed for change makes me laugh. A lot. My gang of reprobates have designs on Tory posters...

links

Thursday, 14 January 2010 08:07 pm
forthwritten: (cogs)
I think it's fairly obvious what I think of Channel Four's Indian Winter, but this article is probably better written (even if annoyingly Cal-centric). In short: no, I do not find it interesting to watch a white dude wander around a slum exclaiming that people are so very poor but gosh, aren't they happy? And, y'know, it's not my India. India's vast - there's a huge range of environments and cultures and languages, and not everywhere is hot and dusty. My India is forests and rain and being above the clouds. It gets frustrating that this diversity is ignored in favour of someone's idea about India should be like.
Having said that, did watch Slumdog Millionaire last night. Still maintain that the book's better.

Was appalled and depressed by news that men were cleared of rape because the woman had fantasised about group sex. And, just, argh. PennyRed discusses it, as does Pandora Blake. It's hard to know the exact context in which the transcripts were offered, but I think what it says about fantasy and consent is troubling.
A person's fantasies aren't necessarily things they'd actually enjoy. Having a fantasy about something does not equate to consent. Talking about a fantasy does not equate to consent. Consent has to be negotiated, both before and during sex. Someone might have consented to an activity many times, but if they've not consented to it this time, then it's definitely Not Okay to do it anyway. Someone might have consented to an activity but withdraws consent during it and it's Not Okay to continue.

On a happier note, someone linked to Sugru (poss on facebook?) and I like the idea of people modifying and improving their environment and thinking about how to improve it.

[personal profile] trouble posted a call for submissions for an anthology on feminism and mental health - might be of interest?

rat links

Thursday, 29 October 2009 12:50 am
forthwritten: (ratty)
Today my rather large rat cage was delivered and I decided to assemble it by myself. It was all straightforward enough; out of loyalty I should say that my dad would probably have enjoyed it, but in all honesty we probably would have ended up arguing over which way round the panels went, he would have called me stupid but I would have been right. Why should this be any different from any other kind of flatpack furniture?

I bought some things from the pet shop down the road (litter tray, water bottles, couple of tunnels) but it's still looking empty. I suppose I'll be forced to look online for hammocks and rope things and boxes and toys and such...hard times, right? :D

http://www.acrorats.co.uk/
http://www.ratwarehouse.com/index.php
http://www.fuzzbutt.co.uk/
http://www.equinecaninefeline.com/catalog/index.php
http://www.cavycouture.co.uk/

http://www.petcentreonline.co.uk/ecommerce/Scripts/prodList~idcategory~75~curPage~1~sortField~sortorder.htm

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