The City of Boston is encouraging people on food stamps to "buy local" by doubling the purchasing power of their food stamps at 14 farmers' markets in the city. (Boston has a total of 22 farmers' markets that run through the summer.)

When food stamp recipients swipe their benefit cards on portable credit card readers at the participating farmers' markets, they will receive up to $20 in vouchers — called Boston's Bounty Bucks — by spending $10 worth of food stamps.

The list of Boston-based participating farmers' markets can be found here. (WARNING: PDF file)

Boston Globe article here.

If you think this is a good idea like I do, don't read the comments. The idiots will only piss you off.

Many thanks to mara_sho for continuing the White Knight Awards under very trying circumstances this year.

Voting is now open for the White Knight Awards, which as you know is a popular vote contest. There are lots of nominees on the list, including many people on my list.

Go and vote for your favorites.

Clearly cabin fever is consuming me because I'm supposed to be working and I'm being totally frou-frou. I'm like, screwing around online because I can't seem to concentrate.

It probably didn't help that I dragged out the SADLight and did a 30-minute session, which I suspect was too long because my co-workers have remarked that I've gotten very chipmunk like in the late a.m.

via honorh:

Sears Tower in Chicago has opened a glass balcony on the 103rd floor.

I believe I have mentioned several times in this journal that I have crippling terror of heights.

Just looking at the pictures made me go AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

And then I had to hide under my desk for 5 minutes until I calmed down.

Slide show showing people looking like they're floating in air if you're a freak.

Acrophobes like myself might want to give the pictures a big miss.

According to this graphic from today's Boston Globe, for half the month of June there was no sunlight at all, and almost every day was colder than normal for June.

( Graphic cut because it's fairly large and could bork my list )

It's been thundering and lightening all day. All of my coworkers are snapping at each other. I'm making jokes about bring in my SAD treatment light so we can all get some beneficial light. Everyone is still wearing their winter-spring-fall clothes. No one has installed their air conditioners, either.

And if one more person goes, "So much for global warming! Hur! Hur! Hur!" I'm a-gonna smack them.

It's global climate change, you lunatics. Much as you don't want to hear it, a frigid June and a summer where there ain't actually a summer, fits the pattern.

I'll be over here getting unnecessarily irritated. Because of cabin fever. Which people in these parts get during the month of February. They do not and should not be getting cabin fever in June.

*snarl*

Yay!

I'm really happy that Walking Higher (The Childhood's End Remix) that I wrote for last year's Remix has been nominated in the Ludicrous & Far Too Breakable category over at White Knight Awards.

Walking Higher is my favorite remix, mostly because it turned out exactly how I wanted it to turn out and, for once, the words said exactly what I wanted them to say, and the characters did exactly what I wanted them to do. It is also the most difficult story I've written in technical terms, both because of its complicated structure and because of the tight time constraints for writing it.

Plus I turned out to be a strangely good match for kivrin, who wrote the original story Winter Garden, which is a good character piece in and of itself. If you like Giles/Xander, I recommend it.

Another reason why I'm thrilled Walking Higher got nominated is that it's one of those stories that I swear that not too many people have read. I'm thrilled that someone had read it and enjoyed it enough to nominate it.

I have been nominated in other categories for other stories for the WKA this year. While all of them make me happy, this nomination really thrills me to pieces.

Thank you so much for the nomination.

Cool! It appears I've been nominated at the White Knight Awards in several categories.

Last Train Leaving Wonderland was nominated in the Epic Fic and Guess Who Just Got Mean categories.

Dismay — a really ancient story in Internet terms — was nominated in the Crazy Whirligig of Fun category.

Nobody Never Gets to Heaven was nominated in the Unfinished Fic category.

And here's a pretty plaque for moi!



In the meantime, I'll be over in the corner bashing out my Remix fic.

Oh, remix...Y U so epic, bb?

Actually, I got a good chunk of it done already. But I'm still racing the deadline because I thought there was an extra week where there wasn't so much.

So if you don't hear from me, it's because I knee deep in the Word doc...

ME WANT!

May I present the Wilderness Systems Zephyr 155:



The odds of this boat being available at a discount at the end of the year...actually pretty good.

Odds that it will be reduced by 40% and in a price range which I can afford without draining my savings account and resorting to the credit card to buy a paddle ($300 more or less)...absolutely nil.

I just spent an hour-and-a-half after work today falling in love and doing the kayaking equivalent of donuts in the middle of the Charles in this boat.

*cries*

I need to marry rich.

I may have to settle for buying a season pass for another year...

Doesn't it figure that when I settle on a sport I love, it happens to be a horrendously expensive sport.

*cries*

From Twitter: If an innocent girl gets shot halfway across the world, does she make a sound? Yes, and the whole world hears her. #iranelection #neda

Sorry for no updates and picture uploads yesterday.

I've been pretty much refreshing ontd_political, Andrew Sullivan, and The Huffington Post to follow events in Iran.

And...it is hard to watch. The urge to do something is strong, even though there isn't a whole lot you can do but bear witness.

Like watching a 16 year-old girl named Neda die after being snipped by the basij in front of the horrified eyes of her family.

(Oh, fuck me. I'm crying again. Note that the video is graphic, so you might not want to watch. The comments in ontd_political will make you cry alone.)

It's the YouTube seen 'round the world. As to what it ultimately means for Iranians in particular, and us in general I simply can't see from where I sit.

But I know that nothing is quite the same as it was.

Here is where the we at least see the power of the Internet. Blogs (Iran is the third largest blogging nation), YouTube, texting, Facebook, Gmail statuses, and...Twitter. All of them employed to deliver telegrams not just between protesters inside Iran, but to send them from inside the country to the world outside.

Who knew that in the end, the revolution would be Twittered? It's the perfect demonstration of The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism being done in real time.

And every picture uploaded to Photobcket and Flikr, every status statement made on Facebook and Gmail, every text messages sent to phones and Twitter, every video uploaded to YouTube says the same thing.

We are here, and maybe we're scared, but we're not going anywhere.

As Fred Clark over on the Slacktivist says: I find the courage and defiant determination of these people beautiful, humbling and inspiring.

But the most striking thing about the protests is the presence of women leading the fight. So many of them are young and beautiful. And as Jezebel points out, that's entirely the point, because these women are not just making a statement by getting involved, but also in the way they dress.

I can understand the neo-con call for us to do something even though I completely disagree with them and think it's probably the last thing we should do. The arc of history is against the U.S. in this, in it's for the best that we do our best to stay out of the clash between the protesters and the Iranian government. The U.S. coming in on the side of the protesters is exactly what the government wants, so they can blame the protests on "foreign influence" and discredit what the protesters are trying to accomplish.

And what they're trying to accomplish is justice, to force the government to live up to its promises and govern only by the consent of the governed. If the protesters succeed, will their democracy look like ours? Hell, no. It won't and it shouldn't. But it will be theirs and that's the point.

Who wouldn't want to do something after reading and seeing everything that's available online? Who wouldn't?

But in the end, I think President Obama struck the right tone here in reminding the Iranian government that world is watching, and that the rights of the Iranian people need to be respected.

It's hard sitting on the sidelines, but sometimes you have to because history needs witnesses.

Like watching the death of a 16 year-old girl named Neda half-way 'round the world, a girl you didn't know ever existed until just this moment, and understanding exactly what it means.

I did it!

I test-run posting a video from our puffin safari at Machias Seal Island up on YouTube and it worked!

Just an FYI: Machias Seal Island, aka the island where the Canadians keep the lighthouse manned because both the U.S. and Canada claim it as theirs and the Canadians know that the Yanks will be there with the Stars and Stripes the second their lighthouse keeper leaves, is home to no less than three alcid or auk species of birds.

The video not only shows you the Atlantic puffins, but also the more penguin-looking razorbils. The third colony on the island are murres, but they hang out down by the water and I only got a still picture of one with bridal markings hanging out with the rest of the auks.

According to the intrepid Captain Andy (Bold Coast Tours out of Cutler, Maine, for those who are interested), the alcids are pretty much the northern hemisphere's answer to penguins (there are no penguins in the northern hemisphere, which I knew). The Machias Seal Island colonies number as roughly 800 murres, 1,200 razorbills, and a couple of thousand puffins.

Just some notes here: my brother and I were sharing a blind with a couple of ladies, so the flemmy male voice you hear is my poor, sick brother who had vowed to go to the island dead if necessary (at the time he didn't know that he had H1N1). The "mooing" noise and the chainsaw like noise you hear is actually a combination of the razorbills and the puffins making their typical bird sounds (musical they are not). Also, you'll hear some high-pitched cheeping. Those are the unseen puffin chicks in their rocky burrows (you'll see one puffin standing guard in front of one of them in the video).

Finally, I don't know if you can hear it in the video, but the incessant thumping noise you hear is the sound of puffins landing like sacks of wet cement on the roof of our blind.

Video and audio was captured by my trusty Canon.




Now I have to get back to writing my Remix. Oi. I think I bit off more than I can chew. Again.

Well, I'm back a day or so early from vacay.

Why?

It turns out my brother has H1N1 (aka Swine Flu). My parents started getting symptoms yesterday. Thankfully it's a mild-ish case for all three.

This leaves me as the sole Healthy!Marcs in the family. This also means I've now been exposed. Joy. No symptoms yet, so that's something.

BlueCross basically told me to do the following:

1) Inform my place of employment so if I do develop symptoms over the next four days, they won't think I'm eeking out extra vacation time. Also, it gives them time to decide whether they'd prefer me working from home next week to make double sure that I'm not contagious.

2) Don't overdo it for the next few days. Take it easy and pay attention to my body/health and take immediate action if I get symptoms.

The good news is I don't have to quarantine my sorry ass. It's so widespread in Massachusetts that everyone's been pretty much exposed whether they know it or not. Public health officials have pretty much thrown up their hands and decided that it's better to "spread the love" (so to speak) in this first wave of infection so when it boomerangs back on us in the winter (as these viruses tend to do), more people will have immunity.

In short: better to get normal flu-level sick now to spare yourself deadly ill 6 months from now.

*sigh*

I'm not panicking, but damn this is not a good thing to find out. I'm kind of torn between "get sick and get it over with" and "oh HELL no." Since I'm not immunocompromised, I'm leaning towards "get sick and get it over with."

In the meantime, here's a picture preview of a puffin which I snapped with my trusty Canon. And yes, it really was that close.

My vacation timing could be better, what with the Remix assignments going out today.

I've already picked my target(s), and I'm already seeing complications.

On second thought, having a week to think about the shape of my Remix is probably the Worst. Thing. Ever.

Anyway, I'm off to pester some puffins in northern Maine, I've packed my passport (A passport! For Canada! I'm still trying to wrap my head around that...)

I'll bring back cute pictures.

Notice how they're not terrorists when they're armed and dangerous white guys with a right-wing ideology and calling themselves "Christian"?

Notice that?

Independent journalist David Neiwert has been warning us for awhile now eliminationist violence was primed to pop off as soon as two conditions were met:

• the economy tanking
  
• a president who had a "D" after his or her name (the fact that in 2008 either a woman or a black guy was going to get the job was extra-special-sauce)
  

How many instances of right-wing violence have we seen this year, starting with the shooting attack on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church almost a year ago by a rightwingnut, and now this latest outrage at the Holocaust Memorial Museum?

Notice where these cowards always attack? Churches. Memorials. Holy spaces. Places where normally people would feel safe-ish.

Repeat after me:

When you make threats of violence, when you carry out threats of violence, and promise that more threats of violence are forthcoming unless your demands/desires are met, we call that terrorism. (No one missed the threat issued by Dr. Tiller's assassin that more anti-abortion violence was in the offing, right?)

I'm thinking it's time we start calling them by their real names: Terrorists.

And while I am a good Progressive who loves Civil Liberties and believes that Guantánamo Bay and Other U.S. Torture Chambers need to be closed, the blood-thirsty animal part of me wants to give these white Christianists a taste of what we've been putting Brown People through for the past 6 to 8 years.

However, as a good Progressive who loves Civil Liberties and believes that Guantánamo Bay and Other U.S. Torture Chambers need to be closed, I'll settle for a life without parole in solitary confinement in a federal supermax prison in a cell with a perfect view.

And I'm sick and tired of all the rightwing commentators playing, "Don't blame me!" Fuck it. I am blaming you because you keep calling the people who disagree with you anti-American and comparing them to fatal diseases. What the fuck did you think was going to happen? And the fact you beat the victim drum even louder whenever someone calls you on your bullshit is causing a feedback loop with even more armed and dangerous nutcases.

Shit, Shepard Smith on FOX News has been calling out the bullshit spewed on his own network. What's more is that he's been doing it for quite awhile. People are speculating when he's going to find himself pinkslipped and on the street.

Goddamn, I knew when Obama got into office that it was going to be bad, but I'm feeling mightily overwhelmed right now.

But if these mooks were expecting me to be scared, it backfired.

Right now I'm pissed.

When I bought my first foreign car (a Subaru stick-shift) it caused a minor controversy in my family.

The way may parents saw it, you are an American. You should buy an American car. Not because it was your patriotic duty, but because it supported the American worker.

I pointed out (at the time) that said foreign car was not only more reliable, it was a better-built car with better gas mileage. Both were important since I was working as a reporter at the time and the frequent breakdowns and sucky gas mileage of my previously owned, all American cars couldn't be tolerated.

Plus, it was my money I was spending, not theirs. Which they readily conceded.

I owned two Subarus in succession. Both were great cars (although hella expensive to fix on the rare occasions they needed fixing), and those engines were ticking over very strong when I had to give them up. The key problem with Subarus? The body work sucketh the big weenie. It didn't help that the salt-encrusted roads of wintertime New England were all "NOM NOM NOM" on the body either. In short, the cars became unsafe to drive because the floors were rotting out of them.

I was on the broke side when I picked up a Buick Century for $2,000 (thanks in large part to my mother's ability to twist and break the arms of car dealers -- I swear the woman is not only blessed with Arab trader blood, but was probably a horse-trader in another life). The car was reliable, but it drove like a tank and sucked gas through a straw.

I had to dump the Buick rather quickly. There was a minor accident in a parking garage when a guy with a rented jaguar pulled right out in front of my car (the insurance companies dubbed him entirely at fault). His car was totaled on the spot since he couldn't even drive it away. I drove away, but sprung a serious gas leak. I got totaled a few days later.

My parents then thinking it was time to bring me back into the American-made fold, drive me to a Saturn dealership where I bought my beloved 2001 Saturn SL with manual transmission which has never given me a moments worry, has enough pep on the road to rival more powerful cars, turns on a dime, and has gas mileage that rivals the hybrids.

I love my car. I plan to drive it into the ground. Sure, the exterior's made of plastic (the passenger cabin underneath is actually Volvo construction -- which is why the cars do so well in accidents), but it doesn't rust and bounces back from the dings and scratches of outrageous driving like WHOA!

(Unless some asshat hits your car in a parking lot hard enough to break the plastic exterior. Yes. I'm still bitter about my $500 deductible, why do you ask?)

Needless to say, I was utterly befuddled when GM announced it was dumping the Saturn line as part of its bankruptcy process. Yes, they made the decision based on what was making them money, but Saturn is actually a line with a future and could potentially be a success in the world market if GM gave it a shot.

Hundreds of thousands of Saturn owners (some of them with older cars than myself) agreed. There was some serious anger out there, not just among Saturn dealers and their employees, but also Saturn owners.

Saturn owners can now rejoice. SATURN HAS BEEN SAVED! GM is selling it off the Saturn line lock, stock, and barrel to Penske Automotive Group. The man single-handedly saved 13,000 jobs with this move. And unlike GM, which never knew what the hell to do with Saturn, he's got plans.

Hooray!

Or maybe not...Penske isn't getting the Spring Hill plant, which up until 2007 built Saturns. He may be forced to send construction of the car overseas. So while he's saving the Saturn network, the manufacturing jobs may be disappeared anyway.

As for my "buy American" parents, they recently had to buy a new car themselves out of necessity rather than want.

They bought: a Honda Accord.

It's ironic. Just as I'm celebrating the fact that a chip of an American car company is going to survive, they've bought a Honda.

The reason? All the American cars they tried were either underpowered, poorly constructed, or were just uncomfortable to drive. To make things worse, the American car dealers weren't even willing to negotiate on prices or show them any cars that were younger than a 2009.

It was sheer frustration that brought them into a Honda dealership. It was the fact that the dealership treated them like customers instead of marks that got them to stay for more than 5 minutes. And it was the fact that my mother was able to work her horse-trading magic that they actually bought the car.

And they're already in love with it!

The Accord's got all the features they wanted (unlike all of the American cars they tried...and they tried a lot of American cars), and a few features they didn't know they wanted before they had them.

I get updates on how awesome the car is. Jokes about how the car is smarter than they are. All the weird little features its got (like heated seats!). The fact it keeps track of gas mileage.

They're reading the instruction manual even as we speak.

They're going to be sending me "baby pictures" next.

Ladies and Gentlemen...my parents.

If the American car companies have lost people like these as customers, possibly for good, then it's a sign that the fall was most likely inevitable.

ETA: I'm glowering at the sky right now. I was planning to hit the river today, but the low-hanging, rain-heavy looking clouds aren't making me feel comfy about doing so. So now I have to put off kayaking until tomorrow morning. At least it's supposed to be nice and sunny in Sunday morning.

Now I've got something to blame for the strange that is moi.

BEHOLD!

I've been reliably informed by my mother that my first TV crush was Jimmy from H.R. Pufnstuf, which is pictured below.

How she could tell this, I simply don't know since I was pre-verbal when it ran on Boston television (it had to be re-runs because the initial run was during my pre-pre-verbal days).



As you can see, the above picture explains sooooooo much about twistedness of kids in the 70s.

And just about the entire collection of pictures showing off whacked-out children's shows explains sooooooo much about me.

(Oh my God! Sigmund and the Sea Monsters! I loved that show! It's about Sigmund, this baby sea monster, who runs away from his family and hides in this kid's tree house! And then they become friends! And have wacky adventures written by writers who were clearly high on green leafy things!)

Of course, everything after Pee-Wee Herman is pretty much a mystery to me, but you simply cannot match the utter pointless weird, zero educational content that was 70s children television. I mean, some you thought you had it bad with the Great Purple One...

I'm disappointed that Electra Woman and Dyna Girl didn't make the list, though. That was some serious WtF?!? right there.

It's that time of year again!

Yes, I signed up, despite the fact that I won't be around for the first 5 days after we get our assignments, as I will be up in Maine playing "dances with puffins." (Heee! There will be pictures! Oh, my yes. And possibly a little video of birds landing lack sacks of wet cement on their rocky island if I can manage it with the camera.)

Yes, I signed up. I'm hoping that it'll do something to focus my scattered brain, which should payoff in the long run (fingers crossed).

It'll be interesting to see what comes out in the wash this year...

While no one was looking the New Hampshire state legislature just passed its same-sex marriage bill.

Based on the Governor John Lynch's statements that he'd sign it into law if the legislature includes (completely unnecessary, IMHO) "religious protections compromise clause" in the bill, it appears that New Hampshire will be joining the "gay marriage is legal" club.

Read that again: New Hampshire, which was a Redder-than-Thou state when I lived there, is going to make gay marriage legal by the end of today.

Excuse me...but I think I've got something in my eye.

It appears I'll have to stop spitting on the ground and laying my traditional curse on the state every time I cross the border going into New Hampshire. This fact makes me strangely happy.

You know what this means, right? It's time to start making fun of Rhode Island until they legalize same-sex marriage.

C'mon Rhode Island! I loved living in your state and I actually miss living there. Sign on to the New England Compact to Make Heads Go 'Splody before I have to boycott spending money in your lovely state.

So this makes 5 New England states, plus Iowa.

Y'know, if I was going to play "guess which states will be leading the charge on marriage equality" before the avalanche started, I can pretty much guarantee that Iowa, Connecticut, Maine, and New-fucking-Hampshire would NOT have been anywhere near the top 5.

And yet, there they are.

*hugs my corner of the US*

You know what this means, right? More than 10% of all U.S. states recognize same-sex marriage on a equal basis with male-female marriage.

*beams*

So says Frank Schaeffer. Yes that Frank Schaeffer.

If you don't want to click the links, let me explain: Frank Schaeffer, along with his late father, built the modern religious right movement and created virulently anti-abortion film in 1979.

And yes, he backs up everything that I said here about the violent rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement when they think they're among friends. Read the comments in that post. I've got more back-up there, too.

I urge you to watch the 10-minute clip where Schaeffer apologizes for the murder of Dr. George Tiller, despite the fact that he's turned on the Christianist movement and is working like hell to undo the damage he's done in their name (note to self: Get Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back out of the library).

But first, if you want to understand the unmitigated good Dr. Tiller did, a2zmom offers up an old post where she calmly and concisely explains what exactly a third-trimester abortion actually means.

Then read this testimony from one of Dr. Tiller's patients. (Read the comments, too, as they are yielding up quite a lot of information about the actual law about late-term abortions, other patients of Dr. Tiller's, and people's borderline violent run-ins with the anti-abortion movement).

If you're up to getting your heart broken again, here is another patient of Dr. Tiller's explaining how important this man was to his desperate patients.

There are links all over the place, and people sharing their stories as well, about the necessity of keeping abortion legal — including third-trimester abortions which are invariably medically necessary and not (as those rampant liars in the anti-abortion movement would have you believe) used as a "form of birth control" or because women in their 8th or 9th month "suddenly decided they didn't want the baby."

If you think I'm overstating the cases that it's high time we hold the talking heads of the anti-abortion movement along with their right-wing enablers responsible for the violence, I've got nothing on Frank Schaeffer, the guy who actually helped build the movement back in the day.

Schaeffer does not mince words on this. At all.








Here's a direct link to the same video clip on MSNBC, since for some reason I can't do a direct embed.


Again, work is kind of hellish. So for anyone who comments, I'll just barely be able to monitor comments, but probably won't be wading into the middle.

Keep it non-violent, folks, or you're going to get bonked on the head.

tobyaw on Dreamwidth has come up with a nifty tool to determine which people on your ElJay circle have accounts on Dreamwidth.

His post on dreamchasers is here.

Direct link to the tool itself is here.


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It's all over the Web by now that Dr. George Tillman was murdered in church today.

Yes. In church. In front of his wife, who was in the choir, and in front of his fellow parishioners.

WWJD, indeed.

ontd_political is all over it.

Be sure to read the comments. There's some important information in there, including comments from a couple of Dr. Tillman's grateful patients. These were desperate men and women who didn't want an abortion, but needed to have an abortion because carrying to term would result in a dead woman, or a fetus so riddled with birth defects or genetic disease that if it wasn't going to be born dead it was going to die shortly thereafter in unbelievable pain.

Look up anencephaly and harlequin fetus as prime examples. I dare you to keep down dinner when you do. (No. Not linking to definitions, because it's triggering on a massive, massive scale.)

Their testament to Dr. Miller's compassion and kindness, to the professionalism of him and his staff, to the fact that this brave man was willing to help them in their hour of need when no other doctor would, is a fitting epitaph for a man whose epitaph was written too soon.

But I'm not going to talk about it, and instead let the information talk for itself.

Because this, this right here, is how you turn people against you. You do it one murder, and one act of terrorism, at a time.

This is how people see you for what you really are.

See, it's not even a bet that it's going to come out that the alleged shooter is connected to Operation Rescue.

Not. Even. A. Bet.

I know these people. I know these people from waaaaaaay back.

I suppose I should thank 'em, because they're the reason why I'm militantly pro-choice today.

Too bad people had to wind up dead for me to see the light, right?

( It may surprise you that once upon a time I was anti-abortion... )

Make no mistake: I did not come to this pro-choice stance easily or happily. I came to it out of sheer self-defense and in defense of the women around me, even for those women who disagree and would call me a depraved murderer to my face for simply being pro-choice.

This pro-choice stance has caused friction with my family, and the abortion debate remains the one subject that's never, ever discussed. Every time we try it ends in screaming and tears. So, in the name of family harmony, we agree to not agree and say nothing at all.

Ironically enough, it's my mother who's at the opposite extreme. Both my brother and my father fall in the mushy middle, I think. Don't like it. Don't approve. But then again, they're not women, so what the hell do they know? So, let's throw in "it should stay legal" and leave it at that.

Word of warning here: I've got the work week from hell coming up, so I may or may not respond. Not because I don't give a shit, but because I just don't have the time.

Also, you're not going to convince me that I'm in the wrong here. If years of Catholic School didn't do it, and if my mother can't do it, and if debating back and forth with myself on the issue for years didn't do it, you sure as hell aren't going to succeed.

So think on that if you're tempted to let loose both barrels.

Also: Any abusive comments to myself or any other responder will be screened and reported. So if you're going to disagree, make damn sure you're polite about it. And even if you do agree, threats of violence is going to land you in the same hot water.

I'm biased, and I'm not afraid to show it.

ETA: I knew it. I knew it. I totaly called Operation Rescue bobbing up in Dr. Tillman's murder like a bloated corpse.


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Someone utterly failed to tell me that Robert Wisdom was in S4 of Supernatural.

Gah!

Supernatural's icky race and gender issues squick me the fuck out to the point where I can't ignore it, but there are in fact some actors for whom I'm willing to override that squick.

Like the awesome Robert Wisdom aka, the super-awesome Bunny Colvin from The Wire.

I love Bunny Colvin leik whoah! And I really love Robert Wisdom.

I would so endure Supernatural for Robert Wisdom. And there are only a few actors for whom I'd cross that line.

Aw, hell. I'd cross that line for just about entire cast of my beloved The Wire.

Do you know how I found out? Do you?

Someone on my FList (I forget who) was threatening to write a The Wire/Supernatural crossover about how Bunny Colvin ended up hosting Uriel.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, re: The awesomeness of Robert Wisdom and his portrayal of Bunny Colvin:

Bunny Colvin's famous "there's never been a paper bag" speech from The Wire S3:












And here's Bunny Colvin in S4 explaining why education doesn't work for the corner kids:












Damn it, damn it, damn it! I'm going to have to Netflix Supernatural S4, aren't I? Just so I can watch Robert Wisdom do his thing.

Bah! I'll put up with the icky race and gender issues just to catch Robert Wisdom on Supernatural.

Damn it.



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OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH! &hearts

FOX I MAY ACTUALLY LOVE YOU A LITTLE! &hearts

This from a gal who hated High School Musical.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS SHOW!

I'm so tuning in as soon as it's added to the schedule. It's made of awesome!

(I especially love the fact that the adults get as much play as the kids...)

Is it fall yet?



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Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!

For some bizarre reason I thought Glee was on tonight, not last night.

Thank heavens FOX is streaming the pilot episode via its Web site, so, I'll still be watching it on Wednesday night, just a day after everyone else.

Despite my loss of Glee, I was taken utterly by surprise by Nicholas Brendon popping up on my teevee last night (clearly I need to check his Web site more often...)

See, waaaaaay back in the mists of time I watched Without a Trace. I know I watched all of first season pretty religiously and probably up until mid-way second season. Then, other things came along and for one reason or another I stopped watching it.

My parents remained fans of WaT, mostly because they like Anthony LaPaglia rather than the show itself. (I understand that it had gotten somewhat soapy in its old age.)

As for me, I watch WaT like I watch Cold Case and CSI (Original Vegas Formula): If I'm bored and flipping through channels and I stumble across it on teevee, I'll pause and watch. It whatever is on the screen interests me, I'll watch, if not, I'll move on.

Anyway, since the announcement that WaT had been canceled came through yesterday, and last night was the season (now series) finale, I figure, "Eh. I'll watch it for old times' sake. See the old girl out."

I was a bit annoyed by the amount of time that was being spent on the investigators' personal drama (as opposed to the work-related drama), a clear sign that soapy-ness really had taken over. And I was a bit stunned to see bits of the episode were being told from the missing person's point of view (when the hell did that happen?). I mean, really? I thought the whole point of the show was that the missing person wasn't there and didn't appear unless someone was giving a statement to the FBI.

*roll eyes* Definitely not cool.

But the real shocker? Watching Nicholas Brendon stroll into a scene near the beginning (clearly, I had not been paying attention to the opening credits). Before the words, "What the hell?" were done leaving my mouth, the words, "Hey! He's playing the episode baddie! Hooray!"

And he actually did a decent job playing the episode baddie. This shouldn't surprise me, because creepy is actually something this actor seems to do well, but very rarely seems to be given the opportunity to play. There was a certain amount of creepy, but not a whole lot of menace — until the end when his character tried to off the "missing person" by drowning them. On the whole, none of his usual ticks and not one lunge toward the funny.

Right, so I stuck my nose into NB's IMDB page.

Oh, deah. A Lifetime movie? Odds are he'll be playing the creepy stalker guy. Which...

Actually might be a good career move if his WaT performance is anything to go by.

Anyway, for those of you who saw Glee last night...tell me...was it good? Or am I gonna be sorry I watched?


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Ethan Zuckerman (who really is fascinating guy doing fascinating international work...really, click his name to read his bio) has proffered The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism.

What is The Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism?

The short answer?

People like cute cats. People love looking at pictures of cute cats. People adore posting pictures of their cute cats. Internet companies come up with all kind of tools to make it easier for people to post pictures of their cute cats and for people to look at pictures of those cute cats. Those same tools will then be co-opted by political activists of all stripes to communicate their message.

The entire article is a fantastic read, and following the multiple links will yield some great rewards as well as food for thought. It took me several days to explore every facet of what Mr. Zuckerman had to say and it was well worth the time.

[Not to blow my own horn here, but Yours Truly has been circling this idea myself, only using online fandom as the base of the activist network. Less than a week later, the infamous LiveJournal Strikethrough of 2007 occurred.

However, Zuckerman is a much smarter guy than I am and has been doing this networking thing professionally for years, and doing it in some pretty damn remote global areas. Plus, "posting pictures of cute cats" is a much more complete and accessible theory. Not a surprise, since he really is the expert here.]

Here's a little bit of a taste of what Zuckerman has to say:

With web 2.0, we’ve embarced the idea that people are going to share pictures of their cats, and now we build sophisticated tools to make that easier to do. as a result, we’re creating a wealth of tech that’s extremely helpful for activists. There are twin revolutions going on - the ease of creating content and the ease of sharing it with local and global audiences.

(snipping some fascinating discussion between the paragraphs)

Blocking banal content on the internet is a self-defeating proposition. It teaches people how to become dissidents - they learn to find and use anonymous proxies, which happens to be a key first step in learning how to blog anonymously. Every time you force a government to block a web 2.0 site - cutting off people’s access to cute cats - you spend political capital. Our job as online advocates is to raise that cost of censorship as high as possible.

The entire article discusses how the evolution of tools for mundane things that even the most oppressive government cannot object to can be coopted and used by determined activists agitating for political change in their countries. It also discusses new and improved censorship measures (most notably China) that countries are using to "filter out" this coopted use.

Go. Read. Digest.

Then apply it to yourself. The only way anything's going to change is if we do it our own damn selves.

And that's maybe the point.


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I really need to re-read A People's History of the United States.

Last time I read it, I was actually in Professor Zinn's history class at Boston University.

To this day I regret selling my copy back to the BU Bookstore. But I was a poor college student and needed the money to pay down my credit card which had been used to buy my class books. That regret is especially strong since Professor Zinn single-handedly helped me keep a big scholarship that allowed me to stay at BU.

And that's a loooooooong story involving third-party professor who decided that I didn't deserve to be at Boston University for no reason that I could ever discern. Professor Zinn inflated my grade a tiny bit by something like half a point...just enough to allow me to keep my grade-based scholarship.

*makes note to hit up bookstore after work*


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I've been meaning to post a gushing review about Sita Sings the Blues for weeks, but other things kind of got in the way.

So, what is Sita Sings the Blues, you ask?

It's a full-length animated feature by Illinois-based animator Nina Paley that's being distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License. That's right. Not only does she want you to stream and download her movie for free, she wants you to spread the word.

So, is it worth it?

Oh. My. Yes. It's subversive, dazzling, funny, and touching. A movie that's sure to end with you grinning from ear to ear.

All built around the Ramayana, as hilariously told by 3 shadow puppets voiced by 3 Indian actors desperately trying to recall the details from their distant childhood. (This part of the movie is completely unscripted.)

It also a musical remix of the Ramayana as told from the point of view of Rama's beloved wife, Sita. Sita's musical voice Annette Hanshaw, a jazz vocalist from the 1920s.

Oh, and it's also about how Nina's marriage crumbled while her husband, Dave, was in India on a 6-month job.

As for why the movie isn't being commercially released, it involves problems with copyright holders. As it turns out, Annette Hanshaw's performances are no longer protected by copyright. However, the compositions underlying those songs are. Definitely read the FAQ. It's an eye-opening explanation that shows just how mid-list artists can be made to "disappear" because the copyright holder will lose too much money if they put the time and/or effort into drawing up contracts allowing people to pay for the privilege of using the work.

In any case, Nina Paley decided to set her work loose on the Internet (and on film festivals and on her local PBS station) for free. Yes, the copyright holder can still sue her, but since she's not actually earning any money on it, she's hoping they won't bother.

The Internet Archive is offering both High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD) downloads of the 1 hour, 21 minute film here. You can also download it from Nina's Web site here.

Oooooor, you can just stream the whole thing via this post here. *evil grin*

Streaming is via the Internet Archive.

Check out Sita Sings the Blues, The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told







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You are not Johnny Cash. You don't sound remotely like Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash is made of pure awesome with a distinctive, immortal voice.

You could probably do a Broadway musical if you had to.

After listening to half of the Walk the Line soundtrack, I have decided that I would rather rip off my ears than listen to one more second of you coming up short.

Waaaaaaaaay short.

grumble-grumble-grumble...I think I understand why people made a big deal about Joaquin Pheonix doing the singing for this movie. The Cash family probably demanded that this piece of information was heavily publicized because Christ knows they didn't want anyone to think that this was actually Johnny's voice...grumble-grumble-grumble

Sorry for the spam, but listening to the Walk the Line soundtrack annoyed me so much that I felt the need to share my displeasure with the world.

I will now be listening to the for-shit-real Johnny Cash singing my favorite tune of his, "Ring of Fire."

Thankyew.


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Check out the History/Literature scores! HAH!

These scores? Not a surprise.

That I qualify as "The Cool Nerd Queen" actually kind of is. Okay, not the nerd part, the the "cool" part, and the "queen" part. Maybe even the "the" part, too.





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Over on Sadly, No!, I keep seeing them post these cute little animations, except the cute little animations aren't from YouTube. And, okay, they're pretty crude in execution, as in Dire-Straits-Money-for-Nothing-Crude.

And the computerized, digitized voices are hilarious in a strange way.

Needless to say, I had to find out where they were getting this stuff.

Check out Xtranormal, the Web site where if you can write, you can make your own little animated movie!

It actually looks very cool.

The free account gives you a very limited set of characters, while the premium accounts look far more customizable.

There's not a lot there yet to choose from for examples, but I thought this one was kind of cute.









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Please, please, please maintain this beautiful sunny weather until at least 8 p.m. tonight.

Baby wants to go kayaking after work.

If you rain after 5 (like AccuWeather and WeatherUnderground keeps forecasting), I will cry.

*sniffs sadly*

I mean, c'mon, didn't get to go all last week between lousy weather, work, and social commitments. I'd like to get in at least one more day of kayaking before the end of May.

Besides, I prefer to do my resistance training in a kayak instead of the gym, thankyewverramuch. It's much more entertaining, what with the early evening animal families putting on a show.



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I don't go looking for Trek fics as a general rule, but this one is hilarious.

You've got to check out How to Avoid Kicking Puppies and Other Valuable Lessons in Leadership, which is based off the re-booted Star Trek (which, yes, I saw, and yes, is awesome), while still bringing in some elements of TOS.

I giggled through the whole thing and ended with a stupid grin on my face.

Completely Gen. The newly minted Captain Kirk is finding that becoming The Man has its bumps in the road as he deals with his first command decision.




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I finally, finally, finally managed to get my Dreamwidth looking the way I want.

Yes, it looks like my journals on ElJay and EyeJay, but I know what I like and I know what works for me. It still needs a little tinkering (i.e., pulling over my icons and my customized mood theme), but on the whole it's up and running.

In looking at Dreamwidth, I'm actually thinking of using it to be my "centralized posting location" (so to speak), although I'm not 100% sure that it's the way I'm going.

So, my question to all you peeps out there is this: How many of you are going to be posting on Dreamwidth vs. ElJay vs. EyeJay, as in: all your posts are going to be pretty much the same between the two services?

I ask, because I'm trying to cut down on duplicate postings, especially now that I can actually see usernames on my Reading Page.

Gimme a shout-out to let me know.

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So, Dreamwidth is testing real-time cross posting.

Please let me know if you can see this post on:

• LiveJournal
  
• InsaneJournal
  

Hopefully I'll be able to sit down this week and make Dreamwidth readable (the current style I've got here hurts my eyes).

Then I have to decide how I'm going to interplay LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, and Dreamwidth. Because I'm not entirely sure I want to treat them all the same way.

(I'm also on JournalFen, but I only use that to lurk, read, and respond to the service there...however cross-posting to JournalFen is possible.)

ETA: I'm all set now with the comments. For more information, go here.

Plus, I'm now testing the ability to edit this entry on all three journals by simply opening up the DW post and "crossposting" the edits to all three journals. Let's see if it works. Wheeee!

ETA Electric Boogaloo: Holy Shit! Cross-posting edits while in DW only works! This is the schnitzel!

Found in Watertown, MA: a suitcase of forgotten photos taken in the immediate aftermath of atom bomb drop on Hiroshima.

There's this one photograph, it's the last one in the article, where you see is the outline of this pair of feet on a bridge.

What it looks like: A chalk outline of feet.

What it was: A person right up until the bomb fell.

This is why I want to smack the shit out of people who joke about dropping nukes on another country. It isn't like some other photos of the immediate aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't already public. (WARNING: REALLY DISTURBING PHOTOS OF DEAD AND DYING PEOPLE! Click only if you're serious.)

While the Watertown find contains no people, there is something incredibly eerie about them, due in large part to the utter lack of life. So, seriously. If you're easily triggered, you may not want to go look.

Although I recommend you do. Maybe if more people took a really good look at those photos, maybe some people wouldn't joke so light-heartedly about war, let alone using nukes.

In addition, the article is pretty interesting. It's a real-life mystery that searches for where the photos came from, and how they ended up in Watertown, Massachusetts.

My favorite passage in the piece:

The lack of visual evidence of the atom bomb’s effect has helped us to forget its devastating impact. To see is to remember. Up until now, there have been few publicly available images of what happened on the ground when the first atomic bomb exploded. As a result, Hiroshima has become, as the novelist Mary McCarthy wrote in 1946, “a kind of hole in human history.”

These images go some way towards filling in this hole in our historical memory. Taken during the weeks following the bombing, they show a landscape that is eerily vacant and quiet, like ruins from a vanished civilization. But why were they taken and by whom? And how is it that they ended up in a pile of garbage?

More...

In the department of, "'Taint much, but it's paid for..."

I paid off my car today! I saw that I owed $600 on it, and then looked at the amount I had in my savings account and said, "Y'know what? Why don't I pay that puppy off 5 months early?"

So, as a birthday present to me, I will be receiving the title on my own car, which means it's MINE MINE MINE ALL MINE!

SUCK IT CHASE! YOU NO LONGER HAVE ANY POWER OVER MAH CAR!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(Is it sad that paying off my car has me this excited? Probably...)

Now, all I have to do is go car-payment free for another 5 years and I will consider it money well-spent on a car.

(I can do it, too. Watch. I will drive that mother into the ground, as is traditional for the Marcs!Family wheresoever we may be and however high our salaries are...)

I'll be over here busy being smug. ----------> *smug*

Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman left New Haven City Hall with the first marriage license issued to a same-sex couple in Connecticut on Wednesday. Robin is holding the license. — Photo by Shana Sureck for The New York Times


Today, the Nutmeg State, a.k.a. Connecticut, began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Unlike in Massachusetts (and the late, great California...don't worry guys, I have every confidence you'll be soon back in the club), the sturm und drang surrounding allowing same-sex marriage was at a minimum throughout the whole process. Sure, you have the usual suspects grumbling, but they're mostly being ignored. Let's face it, Massachusetts has already proven that same-sex marriage is actually beneficial overall to the neighborhood. And since Connecticut is right next door, they pretty much know that the bullshit that was spouted in California about the "reality of same-sex marriage" was just that: bullshit.

In even bigger good news, marriages performed in Massachusetts and Connecticut will not just be mutually recognized between the two states, they will also be recognized in New York and Rhode Island, even though neither New York or Rhode Island performs same-sex marriages themselves. (That may well be changing in New York sooner rather than later, by the way.)

Sure, Connecticut is a quiet victory, but it is a victory nonetheless. Its very quietness makes it even more of a victory in a way. Too bad it's one that'll be lost as Californians (rightfully) gear up to protest the morally repugnant practice of voting to rescind someone's basic human rights.

But look at it from another point of view: Five years ago, the number of states that performed same-sex marriage, let alone recognized it, was precisely zero. Today there are two states that issue marriage licenses (true, there should have been three, but Massachusetts and Connecticut are not repealing their shiny new marriage laws under any circumstances short of the federal government holding a gun to our heads), and two more states that recognize those licenses with no restrictions.

Think about that: within the past 5 years, 2 states began performing same-sex marriages, and a total of 4 states openly recognize those marriage licenses.

I know in the wake of Proposition 8 it's hard to feel hopeful about granting full civil rights to GLBT citizens in the U.S., but the fact is: progress has been made, despite the screaming from the religious right, despite the bitching of the Catholic Church and the Mormons, and despite invasions from out-of-state hate groups trying to make us vote "the right way."

Progress is still being made. And if the entire fucking Northeastern United States has to pull together and lead the push uphill for full marriage recognition, we will get there in our lifetimes.

Keep the hope, keep the faith, and keep fighting. We're closer than you think.