September 2011
Reblog this if you support gay rights. I want to follow you.
John Scalzi: The Sort of Crap I Don't Get →
whatever.scalzi.com
In my experience, talking to women bloggers and writers, they are quite likely to get abusive comments and e-mail, and receive more of it not only than what I get personally (which isn’t difficult) but more than what men bloggers and writers typically get. I think bloggers who focus on certain subjects (politics, sexuality, etc) will get more abusive responses than ones who write primarily on other topics, but even in those fields, women seem more of a target for abusive people than the men are. And even women writing on non-controversial topics get smacked with this crap. I know knitting bloggers who have some amazingly hateful comments directed at them. They’re blogging about knitting, for Christ’s sake.
This is a good post, but read the whole thing cause the pull doesn’t do it justice. Thank you to SaltCityGirl for the link on Twitter.
Insert Comment Here about how “Hey assholes, maybe this is why the expat-in-Korea blogosphere is so overwhelmingly male and women don’t engage as much with your posts or forums.”
The end.
Part of the problem is that we are being heard and not seen, which is the opposite of what we should be doing. The number of calls I’ve had to post my photo, and the speculation that begins as to what I look like, whenever I get into a heated conversation with or post something that draws the attention of a primarily male audience are incredible, based on the relation my looks actually have to the subject matter at hand. Since I’ve been linked from Expathell, for example, the number of hits coming through on my statcounter that relate to “photo” or “what imnopicasso looks like” have sky-rocketed.
They need to know, so that they know how seriously to take our words, or what reaction is appropriate. Or just to have the ‘right’ ammo to sling back. You look like this so you are/are not allowed to say that. It makes a lot of men very uncomfortable not to know if the woman they are engaging with is sexually desirable or not.Everyone should read this John Scalzi blog and the linked Shawna James Ahern post.
“I think that America needs an honest discourse with itself. This is the greatest country in the world… by default. You know what I mean? But we could actually be the greatest country that ever existed, if we were just honest about who we are and what we are and where we want to go, if we learned to have that discourse. Things like racism are institutionalized, they’re systemic. You might not know any bigots, you feel like, “Well, I don’t hate black people, so I’m not a racist.” But you benefit from racism, just by the merit of the color of your skin; there’s opportunities that you have, you’re privileged in ways that you may not even realize, because you haven’t been deprived in certain ways. We need to talk about these things in order for them to change.”
—
Dave Chappelle, on how he deals with people that think he “crosses lines that he shouldn’t be crossing” (via lasso)
Hmmm… exactly what I’ve been preaching on as of late. Stop lying to yourselves.
(via jadedfucker)
So on point.
(via slutrevolution)
August 2011
“
Here’s another way students are cheated. In elementary school, which I teach, we tend to go through genre studies. We take a genre of literature at a time and go through it. Well, now what more and more schools are doing is teaching the test itself as a genre—that is, studying the features of a test, as you would a novel, or as you would historical fiction or mysteries. You’re laughing, but this is very serious. Any teacher watching this knows what I’m talking about, that you, in elementary school, in many schools, especially the schools where that gun to the head is already cocked—in the poorest schools, in the schools that teach the most disadvantaged students, students of color, in schools in Harlem—you have to teach students how to take a test. You have to tell eight-year-olds about multiple choice, right? And the thing that gets me is that the, you know, wealthy individuals who promote these policies send their own kids to schools that look nothing like that, where inquiry is promoted, where they don’t spend all day obsessing about how they’re going to do on someone else’s test.
I’ve seen schools that begin right away, that begin the first week of school, where they begin with pretests to try to, you know, tell the kids—if you ask a kid in Harlem—go to any school in Harlem and ask a young elementary school student, “What’s the point of school? Why are you here?” They’ll tell you, “It’s to pass tests, so that I can get a job.”
There’s nothing about—you know, I heard Jonathan Kozol speak at the Save Our Schools march, and he said something that really stayed with me. He said, at the wealthy schools, at your Phillips Exeter and Andover Academies, you know, those kids get to feast on the treasures of the earth. They get to enjoy literature and savor it. And they get to savor their savoring of it. And in our schools, too often kids are given these kind of cardboard passages that are meant to show them what a noun is. But there’s no joy in it. And there’s no—I would argue there’s no real learning.
” —“Poverty Is the Problem” With our Public Schools, Not Teachers’ Unions | | AlterNet
This is just incredibly true and important and pressing and you should all read it right now because it is vital. I’m completely serious.
(via heavenearthandhoratio)
Okay, so if breastfeeding is allowed in public, then dick sucking is okay too then, right? I sure hope so.
First of all, this is a dumbass comment. Let’s just get that out of the way.
Second, Your sex-shame and obvious sex-confusion is nobody else’s problem. It’s typical sexist / sex-shaming / moralizing crap. To equate feeding your child with making your lover orgasm is not only inaccurate, but it is a regurgitation of religious doctrine that shames women’s bodies as sex objects and blames women for what men do to them when seeing their bodies. It’s also called rape-culture, victim blaming, misogyny and sexism. I prefer to call it bully culture.
You may not be able to figure out the difference and frankly, I don’t care if you do. The rest of the planet doesn’t have to adopt your fucked up conclusions so you feel better.
Or perhaps you just made this false equivalency in order to dramatize and sensationalize the conversation and frame it as something other than sex-panic, sex-shame and a desire to control other people’s bodies.
Third, I’m fine with public displays of oral sex. I can’t imagine what would be wrong with it. It’s only a problem in rape-culture where men are supposedly unable to control themselves if they see a hole to put their dick into. Sex is no different than kissing. It’s just a matter of degree.
Again, if you don’t want to see kissing or fucking, don’t look at it. I don’t like to see sexist or sex-shaming assholes, so I ignore them when I can. Even if I end up talking to one, I don’t expect the world or that person to change on my account. I just stop talking to them.
Your blog is amazing, I've learnt a lot from it xxx
thank you so much for the very kind words.
as much as I love praise & kindness (and I really do!!), this site is made up of the great things everybody has to express about themselves and their experiences. I think of us as just celebrating the people around us and occasionally adding our voice. we’re kind of like tourists + cheerleaders + fans.
feel free to add content with the ‘submit’ button.
~arvan
REVOLUTION: FEMINIST STYLE!: BLACKOUT WALMART! →
slutrevolution.tumblr.com
This weekend, Friday September 2-4. Don’t shop at Walmart. Not a single thing should be bought. There is no excuses for a whole weekend of not shopping there, seriously. And if you can blackout tumblr for a whole day you should be able to not buy anything at Walmart for a whole weekend. No excuses.
Why Walmart?
Walmart is not only a fucking evil corporation, it’s sexist, racist and basically any other -ist you can think of. There was a class action lawsuit against Walmart by 1.5 MILLION WOMEN. The supreme court decided it wasn’t necessary to further the case, because I mean this is so post sexism.They are also known for using sweat shop labor in places such asBangladesh, Jordan, and Cambodia.
Their labor practices even in the U.S. are oppressive. They only pay their employees minimum wage, which in some states can even go below seven dollars. They are anti-union to the point that if you even say the word you can be fired.
Oh and one more thing they were also linked to a rape factory in Jordan along with a few other well known retail stores.
But how will I get my back to school shopping done?
There are plenty of other stores. Target. Staples. While those are also horrible companies, we’re focusing on Walmart here.
What will having a blackout do?
If this is a mass blackout of shopping at Walmart then their profits will go down significantly and it will be a sign that… we can fuck your shit up Walmart so get your act together. We’ll bring you down. Boycotting has a history of doing significant damage.
Spread the word and please don’t shop at Walmart. Logging in on Tumblr isn’t that important, but this really is.
Two-thirds of Americans agree with feds’ birth control decision →
floridaindependent.com
Strokey the Penguin couldn’t be happier with this statistic!!!
Thank you Secretary Kathleen Sebelius & the Department of Health and Human Services! Love, 2/3 of Americans & Strokey.
…and remember to keep on strokin’!
I'm a female, and I don't want to see anyone breastfeeding. :/ Everyone knows that mothers often breastfeed, but not everyone wants to see it.
So, don’t look. Problem solved.
I don’t think the rest of the world should accommodate their body display because of your preferences or comfort level. For the same reason, I won’t tell you to pull out your breasts because I want to see them.
After Qaddafi, Arabs Tell NATO : Thanks, Now Please Go | Bloomberg →
bloomberg.com
By Nicholas Noe & Walid Raad
Aug. 29, 2011 (Bloomberg) — After Muammar Qaddafi’s regime fell in Libya, even Mideast and North African commentators normally critical of Western policies in the region generally affirmed the positive role played by NATO.
At the same time, some worried that NATO’s triumph, in supporting the rebels who overthrew the regime, would encourage a new colonialism. Libya and other Arab states that are in crisis, they argued, are vulnerable to exploitation of their natural resources by the West and to calls for outside military intervention or another round of it.
Wrote Ibrahim al-Amine, chairman of the board of the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar, a leftist daily opposed to U.S. policy in the Middle East that also runs pieces critical of the Syrian regime and the militant Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah:
The Libyans got rid of Muammar Qaddafi — this will be the story carried by history. But the king of the African kings did not fall because of the bullets of his own people. His people do not like him, they do not want him and no one can doubt that. However, these people needed some help. This time, the West, i.e. the colonizer itself, was the helper.
He continued:
It will be hard for any Libyan citizen, (even one) who has been oppressed by Qaddafi and his aides, to come out and yell: “I do not want NATO here.”
Al-Amine warned of the “harsh truth” that colonialism will return “under a new form and with new faces.” Western leaders who had embraced Qaddafi and had “plunged their hands in his pocket, which was full of the wealth of his people, are the same leaders who are now embracing the rebels and extending their hands directly towards the nation’s wealth.”
This will have larger implications for the region, Al-Amine predicted. Having been caught unprepared by the Arab uprisings, he wrote, the West has now taken the initiative, which can mean only one thing:
We must expect some additional madness among some of those who think they are leading revolutions, including leaders, media personalities and intellectuals. These people will now increase their calls for external interference in Yemen and Syria under the pretext of supporting the protesters there.
Sateh Noureddine, a columnist for the Beirut-based daily As-Safir, took a somewhat different view. He agreed that outsiders played a vital part in the important overthrow of Qaddafi’s government. “The shame is about to be erased off the face of Libya and the (Arab) nation,” he wrote, and the “European West,” a formulation that inexplicably left out the U.S., scored a “definite” moral victory through its contribution.
However, Noureddine separated himself from blanket assertions made by other commentators that the West was preparing to plunder Libya’s oil wealth. He wrote that Egypt’s recent experience points to a different story. In the wake of its revolution, he said, Egypt has regained many of its rights and is in the process of reclaiming more income from its gas resources. The Libyan rebels must therefore quickly prove that “they are now masters of their decisions,” which means, first and foremost, asking the Europeans to rapidly “end their interference in Libya.”
Noureddine expressed great confidence in the Libyan rebels. He said they presented themselves “in an attractive manner even at the pinnacle of the street wars, which seldom broke the honor and rules of fighting, and which did not collapse into a civil war similar to the Lebanese or Iraqi experience, in spite of many provocations and traps.”
Noureddine, who is Lebanese, wrote that the behavior of the Libyan rebels is testimony that the Arabs of North Africa are “classier” than their brothers living in the Levant and Persian Gulf. This latter group, he said, can’t even manage to proceed with moderate reforms — such as those recently proposed by the King of Morocco, establishing a constitutional monarchy — “without civil wars, mutual accusations and lies that Israel is on the side of the opposition or that change in any Arab country is a free favor offered to the Israeli enemy or other enemies of the nation.”
Those worried about outside interference had an ally in Abdel-Bari Atwan, one of the leading critics of Western policy in the region. In the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, Atwan wrote that NATO’s “rush” to implement the UN-supported no-fly zone was understandable “when the tanks of Colonel Qaddafi were marching towards the city to commit a massacre.”
But he asked why NATO continued its air raids and military operations even after the collapse of the regime, transforming itself into a police force to hunt down the toppled dictator with the aim of assassinating him.
Referring to recent UK news reports of British and French troops and British security contractors on the ground in Libya, as well as discussions about a possible deployment to Libya of a European peacekeeping force, Atwan charged that NATO “is behaving as if it is on a mission of permanent occupation rather than engaged in an intervention bound by a specific time limit.”
Atwan wrote that Arab satellite TV stations like Al-Jazeera were no longer performing the vital role of critics of and checks on Western intervention — now rarely showing the victims of NATO bombings, for example. And with the rebel leadership calling for Qaddafi’s extra-judicial killing, the country’s sovereignty, not to mention the rule of law, is being gravely undermined, he argued.
For the NATO forces, without whom the Libya rebels arguably would not have prevailed, the commentary was a good lesson in the limits of alliances, and the long, bitter taste of colonialism.
(Nicholas Noe and Walid Raad are the Beirut correspondents for the World View blog. The opinions expressed are their own.)
To contact the writers of this article:
noe@mideastwire.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this article:
Lisa Beyer at lbeyer3@bloomberg.net or +1-212-205-0372.
* * *
Since the 1950s Western imperialists have been in the business of regime change, assassinations and propping up client states to pillage the wealth of nations.
In 1953, England and America overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran. The coup was orchestrated by the intelligence apparatus of both countries after Mr. Mosaddegh nationalized the oil industry that was controlled by foreign interests. They set up Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (the shah of Iran) as a puppet authoritarian ruler who relied heavily on U.S. support.
In 1961, in the Congo, the CIA in collaboration with Belgium plotted the overthrow and subsequent murder of Patrice Lumumba—the country’s first post colonial prime minister—and installed Joseph Mobutu who served America for 32 years until his own demise at the hands of Clinton administration backed proxies, Rwanda and Uganda. The war caused the death of 6 million Congolese.
In 1966, Ghanaian independence leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was deposed by the CIA using ambitious enemies from within Ghana while Dr. Nkrumah was abroad in China on a peace mission attempting to mediate the Vietnam conflict.
Another gross example of U.S. meddling in the affairs of others was the September 11, 1973 ousting and assassination of the legitimate, elected government of President Salvador Allende of Chile. The coup d’état was organized by the Richard Nixon administration and Chilean military, ushering in the brutal dictator General Augusto Pinochet. These are only three examples out of many that can be named as examples of America’s pursuit of wicked foreign policy objectives.
A dictator becomes a “dictator” abhorred by his countrymen when he has overused his authority & power. These are good lessons for such leaders overstepping their power because they have come to equate power as their right. Such have been the countries that the West have been quick to ear mark & target for overthrowing these countries has been an easy effort to enter & dislodge these leaders. It is these very citizens who end up helping the overthrow take place, thus the non-requirement for stretched military equipment or personnel & the use of their own to minimize the casualties to their own countrymen. Collateral damage is what the West would call this. The countries where these leaders become “dictators” are often rich in natural resources which are one reason why they end up misusing the mandate given to them & becoming power hungry & their stooges & families end up devastating the country to which they are supposed to function as custodians.
It is the lack of answering this all important question that demands the West not to use these false clichés of “freedom from dictators” as an excuse. No sooner these “dictators” are overthrown the first thing the West ends up doing is to tap the natural resources, take over the economic hubs & privatize all channels that will supply their countries a steady flow of monetary returns & economic gain. All those who played an indirect role in aiding the West by providing support end up just turning their heads away. Therefore, when we all know Iraq was a mistake it is good to now ask whether Libya is going to be another – where the consequences to the future of the people of these countries were never part of the strategy or overall plan!
It is not hard to deduce that all of the efforts to overthrow Governments whatever type of governance has taken place in these countries are done so purely on the basis of acquiring the wealth of these nations. The calls for removal of these “despots” or “dictators” are mere slogans helped greatly by the mass media that provides the visuals of sensationalism to justify the overthrowing by painting the perfect picture of saviors against despots. It took no time for Mubarak of Egypt, the one time darling of the West to be portrayed with so much hatred by the media with no reminder to the public that he was an agent of the West. This is what is likely to happen to all other political leaders who think they will remain the darlings of the West & continue corrupt leadership.
In any democracy where people come to power on the strength of a vote it is natural that almost half the nation will not vote in favor of the overall winner. This is certainly not basis for any country to say that a leader is opposed & plans set to overthrow him.
The countries that are currently earmarked for regime change will know from diplomatic statements where their countries are heading for & this alone should suffice to ensure the country is set in order & issues that are likely to be used as excuses are properly taken care of. Corruption being one excuse is a perfect area to ensure that politicians, their stooges & the corrupt public service immediately function as they should & not as they want to run for the repercussions are far more dangerous in the present context.
If any country should be saved by the West it should be Palestinians suffering in Gaza for years as a result of Israeli. What does the US do instead – it vetoes Resolutions brought against Israel in the UN.
- Nalliah Thayabharan, August 30, 2011
“
(Conservative commentator Glenn Beck) questioned the use of “African-American” on his Tuesday show, arguing “colored” or “black” is more appropriate.
Fresh off the heels of his Restoring Courage event in Israel, Beck asked his co-host, Pat Gray, “Correct me if I am wrong. Didn’t you feel ridiculously stupid everywhere in Africa, in Europe, in South America, in Jerusalem, when you would say the words ‘African-American?’”
Gray responded, “Oh, yeah, because it doesn’t apply there,” to which Beck said, “It doesn’t apply! Now how can people be one thing in one country and nowhere else in the world?”
His co-host asked Beck what the correct phrase is. Beck exclaimed “black,” adding “colored” was appropriate, too, arguing that it is used in places like South Africa.
“It’s not a bad thing, only here. Why are we made to feel bad?” the former Fox News personality said about the term “colored.”
Beck then theorized why “African-American” is commonplace.
“‘African-American’ was not made to do anything except try to create a super man,” Beck insisted.
” —Glenn Beck, inept-American.
(via inothernews)
Glenn Beck: hate filled racist
“We definitely don’t want to live in a world where boys routinely see women breastfeeding. They might grow up with the idea that breasts exist for something other than their amusement.”
—
Margaret Hartmann, “Porn Star Publicly Breastfeeds Baby, Gets Accused of Promoting Pedophilia” at Jezebel. (via aaabbbbbbiiieee)
^THIS!!!
(via lostgrrrls)
“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.”
—Rumi (via eternalconsciousness)
“There’s a problem, though, with that message. To suggest that bad people were racist implies that good people were not. Jim Crow segregation survived long into the 20th century because it was kept alive by white Southerners with value systems and personalities we would applaud. It’s the fallacy of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a movie that never fails to move me but that advances a troubling falsehood: the notion that well-educated Christian whites were somehow victimized by white trash and forced to live within a social system that exploited and denigrated its black citizens, and that the privileged white upper class was somehow held hostage to these struggling individuals. But that wasn’t the case. The White Citizens Councils, the thinking man’s Ku Klux Klan, were made up of white middle-class people, people whose company you would enjoy. An analogue can be seen in the way popular culture treats Germans up to and during World War II. Good people were never anti-Semites; only detestable people participated in Hitler’s cause. Cultures function and persist by consensus.”
—
Dangerous White Stereotypes (via azspot)
this article is the best article everyone read it
(via but-for-the-grace)
“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I belive in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”
—Michael Ondaatje (via cite-belle)
ABC Hit With Attacks on Chaz Bono After 'DWTS' Casting →
reuters.com
“YOUR choice to bring Chaz Bono into the mix goes too far. I am not about to risk the potential for on screen dialogue about sex changes and gender confusion while my 7 and 9 year old are watching. If you want the “anything goes” hippy culture, then soon that is all you will get. You’ve lost us. In case any of you are wondering … no, we are NOT tolerant. We are not tolerant to allow any and all influences to come unfiltered into our home and especially to our children. This is truly a sad farewell.”
“Dad, why can’t we watch Dancing With The Stars anymore?”
“well, honey, daddy’s a stupid bigot who’s terrified that you might be able to accept someone that daddy can’t understand.”