Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

каждому по потребностям, но от каждого по способностям

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Jeff Fecke

The Republican Party is at a crossroads, my friends. Deeply unpopular and bereft of power outside the South, the GOP needs to find a way back to the hearts and minds of the American people. They can do this many ways, of course: by moderating their views, by finding new and better ways to express themselves, or by simply being quiet and waiting for events to turn on the Democrats.

Or — and I’m just throwing this out there — they can behave like a bunch of seventh-graders, and hurl incoherent insults as loudly as possible, in the hopes that others will think that proves their mettle.

Sadly for the GOP and the country, this appears to be the Republican strategery for the coming years:

A member of the Republican
National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats
as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Ah, yes, calling the other party names. How juvenile. Truly, this is the way to prove to America that the real grown-ups are in the Republican party.

The sad thing is that America needs grown-ups in the Republican Party. I truly and absolutely believe that this country functions best with two functional parties. But this country does not have two functional parties right now; it barely has one. The Republicans are simply not up to the task of being thoughtful, intelligent leaders of our country; indeed, they seem to be permanently mired in a middle-school mentality, that if they just yell loudly and strut around, everyone will think they’re awesome.

Well, sorry, Republicans: the election of Barack Obama was a signal that America has tired of tough-talkin’ bullies. We actually want leaders who will engage with the issues of the day, who will take serious issues seriously. Who will listen to those he disagrees with, and who will treat his or her ideological opponents with respect.

So long as the Republicans stay stuck in a game of name-calling, petty politics, they will stay mired in the minority. At some point, wiser men and women will prevail, and the GOP will begin the hard but necessary task of updating itself for the 21st century. Until that day comes, the GOP will continue to stamp its foot like a schoolyard bully — and it will continue to get the respect that behavior calls for.

A Call for Creativity

Posted on May 13, 2009 by the angry black woman

a-call-for-creativity

For those of you not aware, there’s been a bit of a resurgence of Fail surrounding Race over in sciencefictionfantasyland. This latest debate/discussion surrounds a book called The Thirteenth Child. But this post isn’t about that (click on the link for the post about that). During the discussion, author Loid McMaster Bujold came along to defend the book and its author because said author (Patricia Wrede) is a friend of hers. During this defense she about knocked off every square on the BINGO card. At one point she posted this in the comments of a related discussion:

…never before have so many Readers of Color existed to *have* the conversation, or been able to communicate with each other to do so. When I went to my first midwestern convention in 1968, there was exactly one black fan, male; it’s only in late years that I’ve had cause to wonder how brave he must have been to venture in. Octavia Butler, at a library program, once described a young black reader meeting her as a black SF writer, and saying in some wonder, “I didn’t know we *did* that!” As far as I can tell, the biggest single factor driving the current shift and growth in diversity in genre readers has been the invention of the Internet.

Before you click that link to tell Lois how wrong she is, just know that she has been told and has indicated some understanding of where she went wrong with that thinking. Before that, though, delux_vivens made a spectacular post on the LJ community deadbrowalking calling for POC fans to step up and be counted. That post is at 21 pages now and growing. You don’t have to be a member of deadbro to post, but I think you do need to be on LJ.

The deadbro post is titled “wild unicorn herd check in” referring to the fact that a certain segment of SF seems to think that POC who read and watch SF media do not exist or are super rare because they do not see us. Pam Noles is LOLing:

I must add that ‘wild unicorn heard’ is absolutely hilarious, too. Someone who knows how to do those things should make us a T-shirt invoking that concept, with partial proceeds going to Carl Brandon Society, Verb Noir and the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. I would suggest that the design also include at least one or two Orcs in full combat regalia riding the wild unicorns. Or perhaps slaughtering them. Whichever works best. I would so buy as many of that T-shirt as I could afford, one to keep, the rest to do Other Things with.

As someone else said: “I will buy the t-shirt, the hoodie, the bag, the pencil, the toe warmer, the napkin ring, the bath set, the breakfast cereal, and the movie.”

So let’s do this. I know there are some talented artists out there, some photoshop geniuses, some people who just love to create stuff. Come up with a design we can put on some merchandise. Post links to the image(s) in the comments here. If we get enough really good ones we can open up a Wild Unicorn Herd store whose purpose is to benefit the organizations mentioned above. (Someone will have to talk to the Carl Brandon Society about this. Good thing we’re seeing them next week.)

In the meantime, you should go JOIN the Carl Brandon Society. They’re an organization for POC SF/F/H writers, creators, and fans who want to see more POC creating the media and in the media they consume.

Posted in Syndicated feeds | 2 Comments

Sydney in the mud, Maddox up a tree

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Ampersand

Can’t call it baby blogging anymore. This is kid blogging. (I used to do this regularly, but that was long ago, especially in blog years.)

I love these photos, which I found on the camera’s memory card. My guess is that Bean was the photographer, although it might have been Charles.

Sydney is actually as accomplished and eager a tree climber as Maddox, but I think the pics of Maddox came out a little bit better.

More photos under the fold. Continue reading →

Posted in Baby & kid blogging | 10 Comments

Cop chastises 911 caller for potty mouth, hangs up on her, then arrests her

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Ampersand

Via Rad Geek, the transcript of the first of a few 911 calls, made by a 17-year-old girl attempting to get an ambulance for her father, who had suffered a bad fall. McFarlan did eventually send help, but lied about the content of the calls. When the girl showed up at the police station, she was arrested on a trumped-up charge.

I suspect that if a man of McFarlan’s age had called and said “I need a fucking ambulance,” McFarlan would have kept his fucking asshat opinions to himself and just done his fucking job.

Adrianne Ledesma [while 911 is recording but handset is still ringing]: What the fuck?

Sergeant Robert McFarlan: 911.

Adrianne: I need an ambulance at [REDACTED]

Sergeant Robert McFarlan: Well, OK, first of all, you don’t need to swear over 911—

Adrianne: OK

Sergeant Robert McFarlan: —and slow down.

Adrianne: Send me a fucking ambulance!

[McFarlan hangs up on her]

And it just gets worse from there.

McFarlan was suspended without pay for two weeks. I can see an argument for not firing him — if this really was one single bad incident in an otherwise spotless record extending decades. I believe that everyone has more to them than their worst moment, and maybe McFarlan’s behavior here was his worse moment.

(It’s more likely, however, that McFarlan has always been an asshat, a bully, and a lousy cop, but has never messed up so publicly before. He was once sued for tasering a 14 year old boy (via), although the court dismissed the lawsuit.)

Two weeks without pay is a slap on the wrist, and suggests the police administration isn’t taking this seriously. Six months would have been better. In addition, McFarlan should be required, if Ms. Ledesma and her father are willing, to undergo a restorative justice process to try and make up to them for his assault on their safety and dignity.

Posted in Feminism, sexism, etc, In the news, Prisons and Justice and Police | 27 Comments

Wiscon!

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Mandolin

I’ll be there. Will you? Shall we meet up?

(ABW, we better meet up. :) Ditto you, Nojojojo, if you’re going this year.)

Posted in Whatever | 2 Comments

Of Movements, Rights, and Big Mouthed Allies

Posted on May 12, 2009 by karnythia

of-movements-rights-and-big-mouthed-allies

So there’s been major issues over on LiveJournal about conservative political ads (as well as some with other objectionable content) appearing on the pages of people who are not exactly the target market. And the ads are indeed offensive, but they are also an indication of what’s going on in the oppression business these days. It’s not a comfortable conversation from a business (or social) standpoint, but it is a necessary one. For a while now I’ve had thoughts brewing on the whole marriage protection movement and why Perez Hilton’s face off with Miss California isn’t quite the coup he thinks it is as well as on why these groups are proliferating courtesy of slick campaigns like the one behind The National Organization for Marriage and their (effective!) fear mongering tactics and pre-written talking points for supporters. Like it or not they have a coherent cohesive approach to achieving their goal, and the reaction to them (while certainly fun from the standpoint of easy mockery) isn’t anywhere near as well organized or packaged. Perez Hilton looks like a big old bully in that pageant clip and that’s a problem. So is the fact that the gay marriage movement is lacking in the charismatic leader department. And on the unified message front. Grassroots movements are great, but in order for them to be successful a focus and a leader are pretty much required or it winds up being much ado with nothing significant accomplished.

Lots of comparisons are made to the Civil Rights Movement and even when I don’t agree with the analogy I can see how it can be used as a framework, but then we come back to history and the use of strategy to achieve a desired goal. Make no mistake Rosa Parks didn’t just happen to refuse to give up her seat on that bus. In fact the person who gave them the idea of organizing a boycott was another young woman entirely, but they decided she wasn’t a suitable test case because she was a single mother. Fair? No. But, totally understandable given the need for black people to have a movement as far above reproach as possible in order to effectively change the staus quo of Jim Crow laws being viewed as acceptable. All along oppressors have used specific tools to sway people to their way of thinking and I see it happening again in this situation. POC have (at various points to achieve various goals) been painted as dangerous, lazy, whores, incompetent, and even subhuman. We’re already on the “They want to destroy our way of life and silence us” as the primary message. And yes, I know the idea that gays getting married will somehow destroy marriage as a social construct is utterly insane, but you know logic generally has very little to do with these sorts of things. It’s all about the hyperbole and the carefully constructed propaganda. Not to Godwin my own post, but Hitler didn’t sell the Holocaust as “Let’s kill all the Jews in horrific ways” because that wouldn’t have been remotely effective.

And no, I’m not saying that the people opposing gay marriage want to kill anyone (well some might, but I don’t think that’s a primary goal) but they do have an agenda that they want to advance and it’s useless to expect them to keep that agenda out of sight. Does that mean I want to hear their bullshit on LJ? No. But then I didn’t want to hear one of LJ’s biggest racist trolls (one rx_suicide) either. Or any of the people that periodically find their way to my LJ (and my inbox) to call me a nigger or a racist or whatever the word of the day is for their issues with my big mouth. I suppose I could figure out a way to lock my LJ (and my inbox) down, but that wouldn’t change the fact that those people are out there pushing their agenda. Post-racial America isn’t a particularly different place from racial America and I imagine that America really isn’t ready to be post-oppression so folks might want to consider coming up with useful ways to fight it. In my opinion that includes knowing your enemy (and their tactics) as well as coming up with your own methodology for combat. And I know someone is going to tell me that I don’t get to dictate how to run a battle that isn’t about me or tell people how to react to their content sharing space with hate. And on the one hand that’s totally true and valid. On the other…I’m just trying to help and while people are certainly welcome to tell me I’m doing it wrong (and I swear I will listen) I really want to see someone doing it right. I don’t want these people to win and as of right now? That’s what is going to happen if someone doesn’t push back effectively and start winning the people on the fence over.

Posted in Same-Sex Marriage, Syndicated feeds | 4 Comments

Killing Afghan Civilians Is Bad Because It Hurts Our PR Strategy

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Ampersand

Or at least, that’s what the major US media seems to believe. From FAIR:

Early reports of a massive U.S. attack on civilians in western Afghanistan last week (5/5/09) hewed to a familiar corporate media formula, stressing official U.S. denials and framing the scores of dead civilians as a PR setback for the White House’s war effort.

Scanning the headlines gave a sense of the media’s view of the tragedy: “Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War” (New York Times, 5/7/09), “Claim of Afghan Civilian Deaths Clouds U.S. Talks” (Wall Street Journal, 5/7/09), “Afghan Civilian Deaths Present U.S. With Strategic Problem” (Washington Post, 5/8/09).

As is frequently the case with such incidents (Extra! Update, 8/07), the primary fallout would seem to be the damage done to U.S. goals. The New York Times reported that civilian deaths “have been a decisive factor in souring many Afghans on the war.” As CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric put it (5/6/09), “Reports of these civilian casualties could not have come at a worse time, as the Obama administration launches its new strategy to eradicate the Taliban and convince the Afghan people to support those efforts.” Other outlets used very similar language to explain why the timing was “particularly sensitive” (Washington Post, 5/7/09) or “awkward” (Associated Press, 5/7/09) for the Obama administration.

The US media also gladly reported anonymous and seemingly unverified claims that it was the Taliban’s fault, not the US’s. Read the whole thing.

Posted in Afghanistan | 1 Comment

I would make a terrible superhero girlfriend.

Posted on May 11, 2009 by karnythia

Why? Because I’d be all over killing the bad guy. Not to mention not being willing to play the victim who gets held hostage or dropped off buildings or whatever. In fact as fantasy/horror/romance books go I’d make a terrible damsel in distress period. Because my first thought has always been that she shouldn’t be waiting around to be saved, she should be trying to save herself. Which isn’t you know…part of the formula or anything. On some level it has always felt like the women in those books weren’t quite representative of me (unless we start talking alter egos ala Jem, or secret identities, or even women like Eowyn who dressed as a man to fight for her land) and yet like a lot of genre fiction fans of color I kept reading them. Kept watching the shows and even going to the movies despite the fact that the women didn’t act the way I would or look the way I do. Because I grew up on a steady diet of Dark Shadows, Flash Gordon, Twilight Zone, Doctor Who, and Isaac Asimov.

And now? Now I’ve got people claiming that readers of color didn’t exist until the advent of the Internet. For the record? We were here at the start and we will be here at the end. Lois (Bujold in case you haven’t been following the latest incarnation of Race Fail to know that she’s the one eating her knee in that comment) seems to think that con attendance = fan. I can’t imagine why there would be so few POC at conventions held in the wake of segregation and Jim Crow. Or why fans of color today often prefer to discuss the books they love with people who don’t think the Open Source Boob Project is the height of social behavior. Oh wait, I’ve never seen the point to spending a ton of money to hang out with people who think my perspective is unwelcome or who think they should be able to touch me because they feel like it. I suspect I am not alone.

For the last time, just because it is not happening in full view of white people does not mean that it is not happening. I am so tired of dealing with this attitude that wanting sci-fi to represent and respect the reality of life as a person of color is somehow asking too much. Especially when the reaction from white authors who are told “Hey you’re doing it wrong” is to say “Well then I won’t do it at all” like we’re supposed to be a-okay with being erased, ignored, or misrepresented just to get a few crumbs from the table. I did an interview this weekend about Verb Noire, and one of the questions was about our hopes and fears for the press. You know what? As long as at least one new perspective is brought to the table of genre fiction I’ll count it as a success. Because it is time for the superhero’s girlfriend to learn to fight back and for the woman to ride as herself to save her people. It is time for the books to reflect more than one view of strength, of femininity, and of reality. And it shouldn’t be a case of “Well there’s this one author or this one perspective that represents *those* people” but I know that breaking the mainstream of this habit of viewing POC culture as monolithic is going to take a lot more than just attending cons and putting out books. We can’t be the only ones doing the work to change the face of fiction. So, less assuming and more listening? Probably for the best.

Posted in Syndicated feeds | 30 Comments

Can Israel Legally Defend Itself?

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Ampersand

Daniel Taub in The Boston Globe:

…The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories, […] Richard Falk, recently issued a report that goes one remarkable step further. In the conditions existing in Gaza, he asserts, any Israel military response would be “inherently unlawful.” According to Falk’s understanding of international law, Israel has no right whatsoever to defend itself.

Taub’s claim here — that Falk ever said “Israel has no right whatsoever to defend itself” — is not a fair or reasonable summary of what Falk wrote.

It’s true that Falk said, in essence, that under the conditions that existed in Gaza, there was no legal way for Israel to engage in a large-scale attack on Gaza. Taub’s trick here is to ignore that Israel could have changed “the conditions existing in Gaza.”

For example, Israel didn’t exhaust all diplomatic remedies before attacking; had they done so, that would have changed the legal basis of their attack, according to Falk.

Falk also emphasizes that Israel closed Gazas borders, essentially trapping all Gazans, including the elderly, the ill, and children, in a war zone. That’s another condition that Israel could have tried to alter.

Israel could also have really ended the occupation in Gaza — giving Gaza true independence — in which case, Israel would have had the right to treat Gaza as an attacking nation. But since Israel has for all practical purposes never ended the occupation, Israel has taken on the legal responsibility to protect the well-being of the citizens of Gaza — a responsibility which is incompatible with bombing the shit out of those citizens.

Israel has a right to defend itself. That doesn’t mean that Israel has a right to do anything to defend itself, or that it doesn’t have a responsibility to fully pursue all possible diplomatic routes before engaging in an attack that killed or injured 1 in every 225 Gazans.

* * *

Taub also writes:

I met with a group of eminent jurists who were on a fact-finding mission, examining Israel’s military operation in Gaza. After listening to their concerns and criticisms, I asked them: “Considering the rocket attacks launched against Israel by terrorist groups in Gaza, what in your view would have constituted a lawful response?” The answer was total silence.

I really wish I could talk to those “eminent jurists,” and get their account of that conversation. Call me cynical, but my bet is that their recollection would not entirely match Mr. Taub’s.

* * *

A total of 1,434 Palestinians were killed, of whom 235 were combatants. Some 960 civilians reportedly lost their lives, including 288 children and 121 women; 239 police officers were also killed, 235 in air strikes carried out on the first day. A total of 5,303 Palestinians were injured, including 1,606 children and 828 women.

This was in response to Hamas rockets that — horrible as they were — still killed fewer than five Israelis.

Marty Perez dismissed Palestinian concerns the hundreds of civilian casualties as “whining” and wrote:

this is what I would say to Hamas and to the people of Gaza: “If a rocket or missile is launched against us, if you take captive one of our soldiers (as you have held one for two and a half years), if you raise a new Intifada against us, there will be an immediate response. And it will be very disproportionate. Proportion does not work.”

When people argue that the appropriate response to the deaths of four Israelis is for Israel to kill a thousand Palestinians, their unstated premise is that Palestinian lives are worth enormously less than Israeli lives.

Hat tip: The Debate Link.

Posted in Palestine & Israel | 35 Comments