First, there was the Air Force Lt. Col. who headed a group devoted to
ending rape and harassment in the ranks. He was caught in the act of
assaulting a woman.
Next there was the Army Sgt.who was accused of rape and running a
prostitution ring.
Now there's this dude. Not sure of rank or service yet, but he headed an
anti-sexual harassment team. He's been accused of stalking. It's got to be
quite an accomplishment getting arrested for offenses like these, given
that cops can themselves be rather hostile to women and minorities.
Are we going to get to Monday without another addition to the score card?
scarred enough from throwing up during panic attacks, let's have some
more.
Then there's today. Nobody called me. I made one thing really clear to
these people months and months ago. Call me the day before an appointment,
especially if there's been a change from my regular driver. This is
because these substitutes tend to be assholes. When they don't call, they
tend not to show, which makes panic attacks more likely.
So I called three people this morning, after hours of nausea and
sleeplessnees, calling off the appointment. The fact that the sub is a
guy who brushes off criticism of Rush Limbaugh with, "it's just a joke,"
doesn't help.
And the guy still showed up this morning. I won't even try and backtrack
the effort it took to find and then leave messages on those numbers.
Dipshit didn't even check.
happiness....."
OK, that's it for me. If ever we are true to the idea of America, it is
in moments like these, where we push back against bigots to rectify
injustice.
And that is what denial of marriage rights has been about. I don't say
'quest for' or some such thing. It is about a right that should have been
theirs, but was too long denied. We are merely restoring rights.
...I'm just going to go snivel now.
creeping ice monster that crawls up your yard and knocks on your door.
We had fresh snow, what? ------last week? Yeah.
around, the one that's being presented as harassment of righties?
Yeah, the Righties have two choices: incredibly dishonest or stupid.
Well, I guess it's remotely possible that they're both, but it does take
some brain function to take a story like this----which should be about
Bagger scamming----and make it about IRS harassment.
It's another Benghazi.
It does not get much simpler. Bagger groups were applying for a particular
tax exempt status. Stop me if you can see where this is going.
That particular form of tax exempt status requires no--- no
political activity. Given that your usual Bagger activity involves trying
to yank American politics backward a few centuries, scanning submissions
alluding to 'Patriots' and 'Tea Party' isn't bias. It's reality.
Baggers are nothing BUT politics. The IRS was doing nothing but
follow its own rules--liberal groups were examined as well----but the media
either doesn't even get off its asses when the Baggers have a tantrum, or
they like this version.
Your right wing in action, people.
Michelle Bachmann, by the way, still makes Sarah Palin look like Marie
Curie. She says God might punish Minnesota with a hurticane or a
flesh-eating virus, and that Dems are playing politics with peoples' lives
by legalizing gay marriage. Which her brand of religion despises, but who
cares about the Separation of Church and
State anyway? Bachmann also introduced a bill to outlaw health care
because "it literally kills kids."
Turns out she's not the outlier that other Repubs would have you believe.
phone, this keyboard is teensy.
If a right gives peoplr financial or legal or societal advantages, you
cannot deny it to one group while reserving it solely for another.
This is simple justice.
The kitties, of course, are snuggling and purring loudly while I bemoan
my fate as their hired help.
forehead.
I did not get good pictures of Shadow, but that's because the limp is almost gone and he's moving at a sprightly clip. However, he did deign to rub my hand. Then, though, apparently I made a shift move or something because he picked up the can of cat food and trotted a few feet away with it. So. Apparently I look like the sort of person who steals a poor, hard-working cat's food.
Or maybe it's the fact that he went off to the vet and-----insert neutering joke here.
I'm not sure if he's using his shelter. He seemed to come trotting over from a pile of nice warm leaves so I don't know. However, he bumped his head on my hand and preened a bit when I stroked his back.
The not-so-nice bit was when I got a phone call from the rescue group---NOT the vet---and she proceeded to read me the riot act over how I shouldn't have released him, blah blah blah...he could die, all kinds of shit, all of which is cruel considering it was then forty eight hours after I'd called her repeatedly because I found the idea of releasing him---with the vet's endorsement---so soon troubling. If she cared that frickin' much, why didn't she take him, when I told her there was no frickin' place to put him? Why didnt' she call two days earlier? What the fuck? Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. I got quite a tongue lashing. She even argued with me when I said he'd been cleaning the cat food cans out. "It could be a possum."
"No, it's not."
"You said you haven't seen him."
"I haven't seen a possum, either."
"They're there."
"Not in my neighborhood."
Yeah, Shadow comes in pretty quickly and eats but somehow this person knew that were possums and shit eating his food---which I only put out in daylight. Christ.
Anyway, I called the vet in a panic and she was very sympathetic. "YOu can only do what you can do," and she said if she hadn't felt he was ready she wouldn't have released him. When I move, he's coming with, because he's used to the food and that way he can live out his days in a warm window with tons of food and lots of warm blankies. I want a catio, too. Might have to have several, because Shadow, it turns out, is FIV+. It's spread through bites, and now that he's, shall we say, retired, he won't be getting into fights.
It's going to be cold tonight, and if I could, I'd be tempted to lock off the porch and put him in there with a litter box. Fred, however, could look through the window and it might just kill him from the frustration of it. Still......
And then next week, it might be ninety. You cannot win.
Shudder. "Homeland"? Really?
And now "Freedom Tower." Freedom. Such a grand word. You think the
starving prisoners at Gitmo agree? In fighting two wars, one of them a
shameful exercise in hubris, did we gain any freedom? Did we free anyone?
Hell, how many people can identify what actually happened on that date?
You shouldn't get to fetishize something if you cannot even define it
accurately. It's too much to hope for that people actually embody the
titles they take.
Three thousand people----not just Americans----lost their lives on
9/11. Then there were almost seven thousand soldier deaths, a war that
attacked----and effectively----destroyed the wrong nation. Hundreds of
thousands of civilian deaths. A whole region on the planet was
destabilized thanks to us. Trillions of dollars spent on graft, bribes,
torture, and mercenaries. Osama bin Laden lived on till 2011. To say
nothing of the more intangible costs. When did we become a nation of big
babies, tolerating ever-increasing indignities when it turned out that
unarmed passengers were worth more than security agents, unlawgul
searches, and so-called experts. We're still fighting a war that we lost
a long time ago. We surrendered, and all the grand solganeering can't
disguise what we endorsed-----or refused to fight.
It's going to take more than buildings with grandiose titles to heal the
real wounds inflicted. We did it to ourselves.
Maybe we can start with the word, 'hero.' Stop slapping it on people who
probably don't want it. It's not an issue of inflation----really, many
of the first responders did extraordinary things. Don't they deserve the
respect of being treated as unique individuals? 'Hero' is now worthless
noise.
And how about actual thought, period? 'Hero, patriot, homeland,
freedom'-----these are loaded, scary terms, behind which hide dark and
frightening realities. Honorable people understand that reality is
intricate, not red, white and blue.
All those deaths, all those billions, all those years, and yet I am
left watching this "Freedom Tower" gettting its final spire and thinking
that this is far from the only bit of unfinished business we will have to
deal with.
*I know they changed the name. The impulse that impelled it remains.
of bigotry behind.
We're voting on gay marriage today. Here's a tip: if you're voting for
the same things as Michelle Bachmann-----what the fuck is wrong with you?
There better be celebrating tonight, if you know what I mean. And by
the people who know that the right thing, the decent thing, does not
involve reserving one right for a group of people while denying it to
others.
I caught him! I cleaned out a cat kennel, put a towel in it, put some
tuna in a nice low dish, then sprinkled catnip all over.
.....you know, I'm sure I could bring a heap of towels for the animals,
too.
So I've been calling vets. My regular vet, who has reasonable prices, can't get me in. The emergency vet charges a hundred bucks just to bring him out, but there's also an option where you can sign him over to them and they decide what to do with him. Am I being too damned silly to find this latter option horrible? He's in pain, so he's not reacting well, would they see beyond that? If he's that badly injured.....if they have to euthanize him is it stupid of me to feel bad about that? I cannot stand to see animals in pain. Crazy cat lady, that's me.
Thoughts? ADvice? I need to call them back. No, I need to wait because I called some feral rescues and I'm hoping they could help. Shadow needs socialization, but that's do-able. But if he can't be helped, it's better to find out now. I think.
I'm always amused at the trolls----left or right---who come in here and trample on my wishes and my words, as if I'm subtle, never recognizing that their refusal to respect my wishes amounts to rejecting my assent. My house, my rules, assholes. Remember that ex friend turned stalker? Very feminist to try and get around a ban by repeatedly posting anonymously---and with the same creepy familiarity one would expect from a stalker, because until I realize who I'm dealing with, well.....
The leftie assholes are the ones who jeer at what anyone else goes through, because they got spanked once by their nanny when they were a brat, now that's true oppression. They're real trolls of the people; you can tell they'll write sympathetic books about poor people when they get a bit older.
They just won't have any as friends. After all, if you're the type that rejects vaccines because you believe that you deserve a perfect kid like all the other products you buy, then you have to have vaccinated people around you, leeching off your immunity. Poor people gobble up all the vaccines they can. They've seen what untreated disease looks like. But it's a very classist issue. They're too special for the world, after all.
You, however, are not. Now why won't you just shut up while Mr/Ms. Fancy Pants shoves into your living room to demand you shut up and admire their thoughts?
So what do GRRRRRRape Martin's fanbrats do? They tell us that rape is historical and researchy and people suck. The latter was a new one, courtesy of a pretentious little troll on my GRRRRRRrape Martin post, who obviously wanted low standards so she or he could drool over all the rape in Martin's works. You know, I've been to some pretty horrible shit holes in my life and seen some genuinely awful shit-----which fandom_wank assholes seem to find amusing. But in chatting with, say, Iranians at the Iran/Iraq border, I've found them to be eminently humane and decent, sensible and kind. That's pretty much been my experience all over the world. The little GRRRRRRRape Martin fanbrats seek their excuses in seeing rapists and batterers everywhere, so just suck it up, bitchez.
Lay back and tolerate it, in other words. It's natural, inevitable, ordinary, and STFU about it, your standards are too high.
There's been plenty of literary handwringing over the creepy stalker fantasy of Edward's no-doubt-soon-to-be stalkery ways in Twilight and zillions of the shitty fanfics that were spawned by it. But nowhere has anyboyd linked it up with two other trends:
The use of rape and misogyny to titilate fanboys, and the horrifying treatment of women online, where all it takes to make a woman the object of an obsessive, abusive campaign of threats and stalking is to say, "Guys, don't do that."
Meanwhile, women are being told that the only hero out there is the creepy hot guy who stalks you, obsesses over you, demands obediance, and doesn't give one shit over what you really want. Women are being told there's only good hawt guy and he's OJ. Men are being fed the notion that rape is hawt and normal. Is it any surprise that the fanboys and Chill Girls who suck up to them or what-the-fuck-ever they're doing can't bear any criticism of their fantasy, which amounts to rape and dragons?
This is not a new phenomenon. See it for what it is. I think that's the most threatening thing of all to these fuckwads: fitting them into their same-old same-old spot on the board. They're just new misogynists, trying to give themselves new names.
Resistance is futile. You won't be assimiliated, but your choices of being invited to more weddings has just increased!
Let's face it, responsible gun owners are fine with gun registration and other stuff. It's the nutjobs who aren't. In the slightest of regulations they see impending doom and takeover. You have to wonder why. What do you fear? Losing your job? Getting sick? Stuff like that. unless you have a true Napoleon as a boss, you don't fear firing if your boss criticizes you. Unless you're a hypochondriac, the merest sniffle does not send you scurrying to the doctor. This is pretty healthy; it's having a sense of proportion. So where, then, do these power fantasies of gun nuts come from?
Right wingers have long suffered from the habit of projection, where they assume that others have the same flaws they refuse to acknowledge in theselves, perhaps because they fear them so much. So you have anti-choicers who think that women, given birth control and education, will run off and screw any and everything. You have racists who think that people of color want nothing so much as to get revenge for injustice---Oh, yeah, except there's no injustice. Because to racists, people of color can do no right, and thus are owed no justice.
What these people projecting onto others fear is retribution for their hateful fantasies about whole population groups. They fear that one day the people they've victimized will rise up and rebel. Their fears amount to endorsement of the criticisms of the left, because people who haven't done or desired anything wrong simply don't have those fears.
Righties fear the Left 'taking away' their rights. Or what they think are their rights. It gives you an unintended glimpse into their nasty little subconscious, where walls block off borders, women have to be locked up lest they screw everything in sight, and only stern white men know what's good and right. It's a fantasy of the omniscience their fathers and older brothers once actually had, merely by virtue of birth. It's also similar to the way that rapists and other men who abuse women like to claim that rape and wife beating are normal and totally okay, so stop bitching about it, ladies. If it's normal, then the problem is women with their unreasonable standards, not men just doing what comes naturally. Yet the fun begins when women try and point out that this amounts to condemning men; just watch what happens when women point out that these guys think that rape is normal and that it's all womens' fault. It's only allowed when men use it to make excuses for what men do to women.
The gun nuts might show up soon and jump from 'registration' and other reasonable restrictions to 'OMG TAKEOVER". There is a middle ground. They want you to forget that, which is why they flinch when you mention it. Don't let them get away with it.
Sadly, for this little girl and her older brother, it's too late.
For a while now one of the people I worry about has been
adelheide, because she's had some seriously bad luck. Then....she got a job. You could hear the difference between then (pre-job) and after (job!) instantly. She sounded brighter, more alert, everything better.
Then one day last week she casually mentioned she'd seen a coworker with a really bad case of pinkeye. And....then....
Don't click this if you're sensitive. Or easily grossed out.
She went to bed normal and woke up like that.
Now there's a few more people infected at work, too. And when she went to the doctor, it turned out she had bronchitis as well. I kind of think this shows how depression can suppress your immune system, because if ever there was a poster child for healthy living, it's her. You should hear the conversations we have about stuff like broccoli and gardening.
And she makes great jewelry. But because she's been sick she won't get a big enough paycheck to you know, eat, though her rent should be okay. I'm going to buy some myself, because you know what? She hates asking for help, so selling her jewelry is how she gets by. You give something, she gets something, like, well, food. So, um, could you buy some jewelry? Just a little? A couple here and there?
Just a few things, guys. Maybe for birthdays in the future. Anybody? Anybody? If people were rewarded on their ability and their eagerness to be productive, well....she'd be Bill Gates. Like so many other people, she just wants to work and earn her way.
Note: stuff deleted because that was not the point of the post.
Oh, wait, no it wasn't.
So I had to go into the VA last week for a sleep study and some other test related to my back plus...God, what else? Prescriptions, paperwork updates, stuff like that.
A lot of that didn't happen. One test never got put in 'the book' and they couldn't squeeze me in. For another thing, they keep the place heated up very hot. Heat makes me get all cold and shaky. Then the beds are arranged parallel to the windows. One of the nurses helped me move the bed so it was perpendicular tot he window at least. And....I figured being unable to sleep for a sleep study would be a problem, but I failed to recognize the VA's, er, talents.
I slept for about ninety minutes. I couldn't exactly bring my own blankets and pillows because what if my neighbors saw that? But it's not like I'm sleeping well even at home. I get three hours a night, tops. The horribly perky and patronizing nurse once again trotted out her signature, "Well, have you tried saying to yourself before bed, "I will sleep tonight, I will?" And I no matter how many times I tell her I don't click my ruby slippers together three times either, she keeps up with this Oprah-esque The Secret bullshit. I'm not subtle, what does it take?
Oh, yeah, for the sleep study they strapped this Terminator hand on my hand and glued something to my chest and neck and that's it. I napped for ninety minutes, then I couldn't sleep in the stifling room. I got up, I walked the hallways, I tried to read. And when I talked to the horribly perky other person the next morning, she brightly told me about my sleep patterns during the time periods that I had been walking up and down the hall, or sitting on my bunk with the light on, trying to read and watching CNN.
We got booted out of the ward at six thirty. I had a breakfast (during which I managed to spill grape jelly, the food of the gods, all the way down my damned shirt) then went up to another waiting room. And every single other patient but me got called for fuck's sake. I could have used that time to fill a prescription but the pharmacy doesn't open when the hospital does. I'd called in to fill a prescription a couple days before this, because I'd run out and why wait for it to be emailed when I could just pick it up? The pharmacy was totally empty but there was a mixup with the whole mail out/pick up thing. Still, eventually i got my meds. Then I went to replace the ID stolen in the burglary. The waiting room was empty but a surly person at the counter ordered me to take a number, after which I waited for nobody while the people at the counter chatted and wandered back and forth from cubicle to cubicle, cups of coffee or soda in hand, gossiping about....stuff. Outside it was snowing. I called the person that drives me several times but got voicemail. The worse the weather got outside, the hotter it seemed to get inside. I had two more appointments at the main VA and another two at the smaller one but I just getting more and more panicky.
Finally, the lady behind the counter grumpily called me to get my picture taken, but not before she demanded I give her the number from that little number slip dispenser. Because with absolutely nobody else waiting I might somehow....something. She demanded to know why I had two IDs already, to which I responded I'd lost the first and the second had been stolen. This got me a sniff and a glare, but she finally deigned to snap my picture and that was pretty much it for me. I just could not take it any more. It's so far from home and takes so long to get back that I just could not stand it any more. I saw a cab outside in the snow dropping off a passenger. I asked him to take me back home after a panicked flurry of "No freeway, no freeway!" pleas. I've had lots of panic attacks coming home on that road and this time, of course, I spent the whole forty fucking dollar trip fighting off the urge to throw up. I just want to point out here that the fucking VA tried to force me to take cabs to that VA when they were fighting me to make sure I didn't get any more care from then they could be forced to provide, so that's eighty bucks round trip. Nice, eh? Three hundred and twenty bucks a month is what they wanted me to spend on trips to and from, and that's the minimum.
So I came home and collapsed. Other stuff might have happened, but I haven't been wholly conscious in months. And I still need tests on my damned back. So far my doctor has said I have some kind of disc damage but they need to do...more tests. At some point I have to get this computer fixed, but that leaves me with a dusty old old old computer that I'm not sure even has wireless on it, and the repair will be a hundred bucks or more just for parts....on a six hundred dollar laptop. Are laptops getting suckier lately or what? This has been a pretty good machine----it's fast and it doesn't breathe heavily like the old one-----but the internal power connection doesn't hook up with the cord or whatever. It's quite new, too. And I hate typing out posts on my damned phone. Whatever is going on, frankly, is more aggravating on three hours of sleep. I just don't have any energy at all and can't remember anything, or plan, or muster up any energy at all.
I had another doctor's appointment yesterday and of course the Perky Nurse heard me mention gardening and tried to 'think up ways to help you.' Get to....a garden show. Because that's helpful to a vet who dreads crowds and can't go anywhere for long without starting to get weak and chilled. She got defensive and started whining that she was 'just trying to' do something or other, but it's obvious she's got all the sensitivity and compassion of a Todd Aiken. I don't think she understands what a flashback is. When I report another one----they're starting to ratchet up as the weather turns----she just looks at me with this disturbingly fake look on her face. It's like being at the psychiatric hospital in Westworld. Don't give the nice lady robot a glass of water.
We got more snow, too. And then it melted. Seriously, we had piles of snow and then....the next day it was sunny and it all melted. After the police raided the house next door the neighbor has apparently decided to show them by having even more loud douchebags show up at all hours for very short stays. So..yay.
I'ts not even nine AM and I've been up since about two. Time for tea. Thta's a major accomplishment right there. One of the ironies of being this exhausted is that tea helps but....you need tea to make tea. Story of my life right there.
Oh, excuse me, a whiny white bunnybutt is offended that the computer is in my lap and not him. No escape for me.
Here's the Red Cross site: I'm sure you can donate blood as well at various sites.
For every action, there is a reaction. People are already bringing blankets and fruit and water down to the scene.
Donate blood.
Donate money if you can. The Red Cross has stuff in place on the ground to buy supplies if they need them. They don't need showboating or, frankly, your issues. They need money.
Red Cross of Boston is saying they have all the blood donations they need. Please donate to your local Red Cross---they always need blood.
I see some dipshit is saying that the bomber 'added' shrapnel to the bombs. Shrapnel is produced by an explosion; it's shreds of metal, sometimes of the bomb itself. What bombers do is add small pieces of metal---nails, screws, what have you---so that when the bomb detonates this stuff slices through bodies.
Looks like somebody put two bombs in garbage cans. Most of the injuries being reported are lower body stuff.
No one is in custody.
In one of the videos you can see first people running---then turning around and massing at the site of the explosion, fulling away fencing to get access to the victims. Some are wearing military uniforms, cop uniforms----and one guy is laden with several cameras. The fencing has blood on it.
The bomber isn't the thing I'm noticing here. Identify him, put him away, but keep this in mind: all those people, rushing in to help, even though they've just seen two devices go off, all those people, most of whose names we'll never know. That's what people do. Firefighters, cops, soldiers----these people do the heroic things after training,a nd they deserve our accolades, but remember this: when bombs explode, many many people's first inclination is to turn around, run back, and help people they've never met. No matter where you are, who you are, what you are-----people want to help you.
Forget the bomber. Remember them.
Runners have been stranded by the bombing and subsequent shutdown of all mass transit in or out of the area. Can you host one?
Can you host a runner?
617-635-4500.
If you have any information that might help authorities figure out what happened, call 800-494-TIPS.
Reportedly the bombs were detonated by cell phone. This might explain why the network is not working. Was it shut down?
- Current Mood:sorrowful
Every single fuckin' book these days has a shy, gawky, dorky, girl who gets told she's 'different from other girls.' Stop and think about that. Other girls. You know, those other icky girls, because who wants to be one of them? I realize this is partly to get the reader to sympathize or get into the heroine's head, but it's also really fucking annoying, due to the influx of Chill Girls and Special Snowflakes into every damned formerly fun thing in the world. You can toss those annoying, "I choose my choice!" 'feminists' in there, too. It's like shit that's sexist: it's sexist. Be aware of it. (I will never not be creeped out by the affection for the movie Overboard, though. He kidnaps an uppity rich bitch and essentially rapes her repeatedly because he uses her amnesia to turn her into a contented little wifey? Really?)
Gimme a heroine who knows she's ordinary. Better yet, gimme one of those and also one who doesn't endorse the notion that all other girls are icky. Sisterhood, bitchez. If the only compliments you get are at the expense of the whole female gender, and that doesn't bother you, well, I don't think you deserve compliments at all. Maybe getting told you're special all the time is the surest way to be non special. If you can't lift yourself up without kicking everyone down, shouldn't that bother you?
God, spare me the snowflakes. They all got trophies for showing up, they all had schedules that rivaled the President's, and now they think they can write fiction. Oh, and they're all That Girl Who Backs Up the Guys, because being one of the guys and being a tomboy are great things. Girly shit is not. Being a girl is not good. In fact, I wonder how much identity these Chill Girls really have. Is personality just tics and habits and hobbies? Do they really have to do that to set themselves apart? They're One of the Guys, because women are no fun at all. You have to have an incredible lack of self esteem to disdain your whole gender just so you can land the dude upon whom your worth depends. What happens when he realizes you're not a virgin anymore, because, you know, he fucked you? (And yes, I've seen variations on that. How come Cersei is condemned for incest, while Jaime is not? In fact, he's being set up to be the Tragic Troubled Hero, and for all her 'fans', Brienne is the exceptional, different woman who proves the rule. She's also the Exceptional Woman at the Virgin end of the Whore scale, existing so the writer can point to her as proof he's not sexist. But where's all the women in the middle?)
Of course, there's a story here. Howie What-The-Fuck-Ever his name is, author of Wool, wrote a post where he called a woman who tried to scout him a bitch and then described how he grabbed his crotch when relating the story and said, "Suck it, bitch."
We've fallen so low that there are women commenting that damn, she was a bitch, what's the big deal? At least Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia got recognized as cynical attention seekers. These women seem to think it's a badge of honor to defend the sort of thinking that leads to assholes whining that black people get to say the n word and have black history month, but with women, there's no way to pithily sum it up like that. Kind of reminds me of the time I mentioned 'corrective rape' as a horrifying phenomenon to somebody and they started raging at me that they were gay or whatever, and how dare I assume that she didn't know about it or some such shit. Yeah, well, how am I supposed to know you're gay? By your font?
This is a result and a symptom of the special epidemic, as well as garden variety sexism. Everybody's self diagnosed and special. They're different. They're unique. I suspect they're the people who make the essentially elitist argument that Shakespeare couldn't have been Shakespeare because he was so ordinary, while the Duke of Oxford was appropriately rich and special enough to have written the plays. (And let me just rant here for a minute: if rich means you're talented, how come none of these assholes has themselves ever written anything worth reading? Why isn't Donald Trump a writing genius, instead of a thick-fingered vulgarian with a combover that looks like it's trying to escape? And how, by the way, did Oxford manage to write some of Shakespeare's major plays when he died twelve years before Shakespeare did? Yeah, that's correct. Oxford predeceased some of Shakespeare's major plays, but that's okay, because he was playing eleventh-level chess or some such shit, so he wrote those plays before Shakespeare died and...Yeah. No. Fuck it, I have no idea how that works. Some scholars think The Tempest was inspired by a famous shipwreck of the day, and of course that Scottish play was inspired by James I's wallet. And for all the important educations these dudes got, they still all make the same essential mistake: they assume the absence of proof for proof itself. The Great Fire of 1666 would have wiped out a lot of records, for example, but to these guys, stuff like that never matters. As Bill Bryson says, "Based on that type of 'evidence' my theory is that Shakespeare never wore pants. After all, there's no documented ownership or use of pants in Shakespeare's lifetime, right?" Don't anybody try and make a free Willie joke there, either.)
The whole, 'different from other girls' thing endorses sexism---against other women. Apparently it's a price lots of special cases and writers are willing to pay, because it comes out of other womens' pockets. The new genre of stalker fictional boyfriends tends to feature rip offs of Twilight, with a domineering hero being promoted as the ideal guy, along with a doormat heroine who can't get enough. Often the writers slutshame other women, because their heroine's hymen is another thing that sets her apart....from those sluts, you know. To fuck more than one guy is to be a slut. It's like Taylor Swift is the patron saint of the genre, for Christ's sake.
These characters, in their ordinaryness, serve as a blank slate, but that's only part of it. I had thought the virgin heroine had died a much-anticipated stylistic death in the Republican Eighties, but these books indicate she's making a comeback. Will women not buy books with a heroine who's genuinely unique? The hero is the price and the judge in these competitions. The writers view his other conquests as trifling, sexually used garbage---and they make that very clear. I've read some theories that these characters let women imagine a much more healthy deflowering than they experienced themselves. Beats me. It's annoying as fuck, though. And these books are everywhere. I'd say even the Hunger Games suffers a bit from it, as Katniss is pretty special, but the way she deals with her extraordinary circumstances is not to put herself on a pedestal, but to try and knock it down so everyone is on the same level. In the end, she really defeats the special girl role. What she wants is ordinary. The fact that one of the two guys in the love triangle, by the way, turns out to be a vicious fighter and terrorist does not deter a certain subset of fangirl, including one memorable example who asked an author to rewrite the last book with a list of requests that amounted to just changing the entire book to her satisfaction. The changes would have turned an eloquent and subtle novel into a trite, cliched, bland romance with the guy who the reader felt was better looking. You get the feeling that some of these readers are competing with any heroine.
The interesting thing about the Wool fiasco is that the male writer has not been subjected to anything like the deluge women get for not doing any damned thing at all. Think this guy is going to get rape and death threats like Adria Richards and Rebecca Watson did? Nope, he's getting backslapping from men and those noxious Chill Girls. That's always what happens. After all, he just insulted women and she really was a bitch. So that's okay, and the easiest way to prove how special you are to a guy is to suck up to him instead of all those tedious feminazis.
It's funny how a dude endorsing sexism gets slapped on the back for defending the status quo while a woman fighting it gets attacked. No, actually, it's not.
I have to say that I think the "My mama" rules apply. I can criticize my mama, but you better not try. Then, of course, you get assholes---usually arrogant little white twerps---who whine that whyyyyyyyyyyy can't they use certain words when they get called 'dick' and 'cracker'?! OMG, feel their manpain, won't you? They can't be openly and proudly sexist and racist. The tragedy, the torment. They get all the power and the rights and the world, but they get a teensy smidgin of blame here and there, and it's so so terrible.
Recognize anything? Yeah, that's right, Mr. I'm-so-brave-I'm-politically-incorrect. Yeah, that's you, that's the same argument. You're not being brave, you're endorsing the status quo, the exact opposite of the testy rebellion you think you're fomenting. It takes a real brave man to argue that power over the powerless is courageous and fresh and new. Oh, wait.....
Clare Boothe Luce was once complimented on how she 'thought like a man.' She rejected the compliment with, "I reject the compliment. One either thinks or one doesn't, regardless of gender." She was my inspiration when my first boyfriend, the BF From Hell, told me---yeah, you guessed it----"You're not like other girls." I told him I wouldn't take a compliment that insulted every other woman out there. He told me I needed to learn how to take a joke. Sound familiar? Yeah, he was that dude. (He did not like it, strangely enough, when I responded to his advice about my sense of humor with: "I think it's hilarious you think I'm going to fuck you after that remark." Don't ask me why I liked him. The 'can't you take a joke' worked for a little bit, then I started to notice he'd apologize for something----and then keep doing it, whatever it was. (It often took the form of grabbing or groping body parts of mine in public, especially after I told him to knock it off</i>. That, by the way? That's exactly what lack of respect looks like. When he made yet another one of those jokes that depend on manipulating women out of their anger for their punchlines, I dumped him. He was shocked. Now it seems like there's guys like that all over the internet, along with women eagerly shoving each other aside to be the one unique girl out there.
The virgin heroine and the special girls are just another format for the Virgin/Whore, the Noble and/or Savage, and so forth; the black/white roles that leave no room for the folks in the middle. People purveying this stuff always point to the Briennes (or the Michonnes, for that matter) the as proof they're not sexist, but the whole point of her character is that she's different and ugly. Why is her appearance such an issue to the author at all? With Michonne, she's freakily awesome, with the message being: "See? She's awesome, so shut up about Lorie and all the rest of those laundry-doing ladies. Now you can't complain." But there's a whole bunch of space in between Lorie and Michonne that nobody seems to care about. Half the time I think people hate the women in the middle because their lazy brains don't like the heavy lifting. The lack of women in the middle functions like the sex in horror movies: it's an implied lesson. Only girls who have sex get killed by Jason. The Last Girl is always a virgin or close to it.
The YA fiction category has been awash in scandal and author attacks on reviewers---but only on other women who dare to not give them the trophy they expect. They seem to think that pooping out a book gets you a gold star the same way taking a dump in the toilet once got you a gold star. As one little Etsy snowflake told me when I was so demanding as to expect a fucking jacket to have an actual hem, "I'm sorry you feel that way but I did the best I could." What do you do when your best isn't good enough? First off realize there's some abstract standards of best that apply to everybody. Hemming and good grammar are not optional. (Amazingly enough, this snowflake dreamed up another excuse. The talented little seamstress fell back to, "Well, the fabric was too thick to hem," as if that was her ace in the hole, and did not like it when I pointed out that this was something the customer should have been told. Duh.) For a few years now, fanficcers who once wrote about Edward and then Christian (himself a rip off of Edward) have been doing search-and-replace on their fic and raking in the cash to women who feel that grammar and criticism as akin to cruel oppression. What I find especially interesting is that they don't go after male critics this way (not that there are many men eager to read this bland offal) and that when they do lose their shit their fans display such incredibly intelligent reactions.
I'm lying. A typical accusation by such a fangirl always includes (in badly-spelled and -written tirades) the accusation that the critic has no life and is indeed jealous of the author's....something. If one has not written a book, goes another argument, one cannot criticize. One such author specialized in male strippers and run on sentences, then blamed it all on a heretofore learning disability that apparently rendered her spellchecker inoperable. Now, that's a computer virus! It sickens the computer and the owner.
Well, that excuse did not fool anyone but her likewise talented fans, many of whom displayed their own flexible grasp of their native tongue. One woman noted without a single capital letter of smidgin of irony that she home schooled her children, thereby giving hope to all that there will be someone to date the Duggar children. The writer went on to protest numerous times that she had once again edited the book, but no improvements were visible. Instead, she 'flushed' that edition of the book before re-issuing it, dumping all the bad reviews in the process.
The oddest thing is while disdaining other women, these snowflakes often demand extreme niceness from them as if it's compulsory, all the while displaying absolutely nothing like it themselves. In fact, dishonesty is common and if one dares to criticize things like sockpuppeting, gaming the voting system, and other unscrupulous tactics, one gets accused of being a 'bitter, negative, hateful' person. Often this is concluded with a smug concern troll, "I hope you get help." The trifecta of fangirling---the 'jellus' accusation, the idea that one cannot criticize without having written first, and the coup de gras that to criticize is a character flaw or sign of illness----almost always come in packs. The author feels no obligation to put out a finished product in return for the buyer's money or time. They emphasize effort, and a frequent metaphor is comparing writing to childbirth, with the conclusion that the child cannot be criticized. (And as somebody who just yesterday watched the neighbor's kid get hauled out by the cops, you're damned tootin' I can criticize the kid.) One sees a lot of, "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all," which is identical to what many cults demand of wives. Big surprise, the female enforcers of nice are the ones trying to push other women with it, while doing a Sarah Palin and doing whatever one wants while demanding of others things that cannot be demanded.
Resorting to the idea that the book is like a kid reveals the conventional role models that this bunch has in mind, for all that their characters are the only special girls around. The fictional heroines often have no female friends, another sign of how sooper special they are, because some women do boast about that. In the final double or triple cross, while this group of writers and their enablers often congratulates themselves on marriage and kids, they demand stereotypically female behavior from other women, find them lacking, and judge them just as harshly as their book characters do. In short, they're criticizing other women as bitches while being bitches themselves, but because they're special it's okay. I'd add another group here: the class bias of some feminists, who used stereotypical passive aggressive behavior on other women, then act shocked and horrified when their target does not respond like Emily Post. Passive aggressive behavior is especially hard to call out because it's so dishonest, and often, it's couched in terms that outsiders might not recognize or endorse, but that the victim probably will recognize as the insults they are.
There's an implied threat here: Behave, bitches, or we'll attack you,, we'll call you out, we'll attack in hordes and cast you out. We'll hold grudges. We'll demand this and offer nothing.
Meanwhile, guys rampage around the internet, attacking uppity women repeatedly with threats of rape or worse, and when confronted, they just double down on how she asked for it and how her behavior was all wrong. Feministe just did a post today about a guy who attacked Wiscon goers in extremely sexist terms, and while the publication scrubbed his sexist, racist rant, he's no doubt now raking in the buttpats and attaboys from dewdz whose compliments are probably about how he stood up to those nasty feminazis. Way to go, bro!
Women are being taught that the only hope they have is a boyfriend who is a violent stalker who attacks other guys for you--but never attacks you.This is the standard Angel of the Hearth motif which says that a woman can improve a man's character just be being virtuous around him. Thus, his failures become her fault. Meanwhile, the guys are informed by people with real power that attacking women is okay because bitchez ask for it, amirite? and who cares anyway? The snowflake women writers are basically the spokeswomen for a larger population group of women who are almost completely ignorant of actual sexism, and actual feminism, preferring their own brand of go guurl self regard. Hidden beneath all the excuses and rationalizations is the idea that they are entitled to act the way they do, and say the things they do, because they have earned them by being special. They think this insulates them from the sexism they see other women experience, or hear other women talking about. (I think it's significant that they never charge sexism in defending their horrible writing, which just goes to show how ignorant----or canny---they really are. What they're doing is trying to be sexist to other women. Even they don't want to attempt flipping that around on others.)
I'm just reading a book now called French Twist, about an American woman who had begun to question her culture's parenting techniques after seeing her French friend's beautifully-behaved children. It's an eye-opener. The French mom cheerfully advises ignoring a temper tantrum 'if there's no blood', instead of the mom rushing off to 'communicate' with her tantuming toddler. The tantrum stops. What we're seeing now is what happens when the tantrum is indulged all the time, and the toddler grows up. That it's women exhibiting this behavior is kind of new, but not entirely. Why? Because men have always had tantrums when they didn't get their way. Now some women are doing it, too. They're smart enough to use it on other women, but that's pretty much where the intelligence ends. They're all Cleopatra, in other words. I guess that makes the rest of us the real peasants here.
A flashback makes you understand what mental illness is. I get dizzy with the power of it, as my body says, "danger danger danger fire fire fire what's that noise where is this fire fire fire" and my brain tries very hard to assert reality. It's that last moment of consciousness before you faint.
I still wake up flailing in my sleep, sometimes with Snowball lying nose-to-nose with me, reaching out with one pink paw to tap my nose. The back pain is so bad it's starting to affect my breathing, and I've had to cut down on carrying containers of litter. No more forty pound bags for me, in themselves a serious cutback in my work ethic. Now it's only twenty pounds. I'm a peasant and proud of my ability to be strong and workhorse-like. I wish they'd stop flinging pain pills at me and actually working on a damned cure.
I'm starting to have the old hallucinations again, where smoke wakes me up and I have no rifle, no body armor. It's positively warm for Minnesota, forty some degrees just today. The air smells of wet earth and hope. But at night, I smell burning metal and melting asphalt.
Anniveraries are coming up. My mother will be ten years dead this November, and it seems like every day I think, Here's a joke only she would get, I have to call her. She's not there, and it's stupid to keep her old phone number programmed into my phone, just so I can see it and picture the two of us settling in for a nice gossip.
This morning, the neighborhood dogs started to bark, and then I heard, "COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP." Cops surrounded the house next door, and dragged out a dude who'd been a prime offender in the obnoxious loud stereo competition. Dude, it's one fucking AM. Turn your goddamned stereo down already. He's not the only one. Lots of cars pulled up to this house and took off after very brief visits. You'd think crooks would have the brains to not be so frickin' obvious about it.
Snowball is giving me the blinky-eyed look of devotion so I'm being paged.
- Current Mood:
blah
Dudes, look. And dudettes, because is there anything more annoying than a woman who justifies her affection for this sexist shitpile by saying she's a rape victim, and she doesn't mind the rape and sexism and threats so STFU? (I actually had somebody accuse me of something mumble mumble Ivory Tower elitism or something, which....yeah, no.) Also, anybody squicked out by somebody using rape to justify rape to shut up another woman? Just me?
Anyhoo, it's a sexist culture. You're going to wind up liking shit that's not just not feminist, it's positively scarily anti-feminist. (The shit I have to put up with to indulge my love of monsters and shit...! You would just not believe it.) Either that, or you can try and be pure of heart and.....not get to do or read or watch or listen to anything. Maybe there's other feminists out there wearing white robes and cloaks and hoods and carrying candles and thinking mystical thinkie thoughts about things like a "yoni" and praying to trees and plants and frogs and shit like that while avoiding all entertaining monstery fiction but.....to put it mildly, I doubt I have that kind of purity of heart and thought and deed anywhere in my future. In fact, I've run into a few of them, and in addition to being warm and kind and incredibly condescending, there's no way I'd ever give up monsters, steaks, pork chops, and The Imaginary Boyfriend of the Week.
But the thing about liking shit in an imperfect world is.....well, with shit like this and many, many, many, too fucking many other fantasy novels by bro dudes is this: there's swallowing your resentment that it's so fucked up and then....there's not only not resenting it, there's being an angry fanasshole about it.
There's just no qualifying it with this shit. If your fantasy novel has dragons and zombies in it, dewdz, then shut the fuck up about realism and how the sexism in your grim and realistic fantasy world is fresh and exciting and real----(oh, stop, my sides hurt!), because while there is sexism in your little fantasy world, there's also, apparently, modern-day dentistry, antibiotics and somehow everybody who's anybody is tall and sexy and has all their teeth. Until they conveniently die for the sake of the plot. There's just enough magic to make chamber pots unnecessary, but the only things that come from Earth and make it to MIddle EArth are, conveniently, the things that let men oppress and torture women.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
There's lots of problematical fiction out there. There's so much it's hard to find anything that's not blatantly woman-hating. But the Westeros crap----what it comes down to is there's lots of fanboys out there who love their rape fantasies, and want to justify it and defend the author---who is saying now, that he was feminist, but then! Those evil feminists did totally evil feministy things and so they just turned him off feminism.
Because what I like in my allies is the implied or completed threat that at the slightest bit of unladylike anger or whatever, he's going to turn into full-on Rush Limbaugh, not understand that maybe a grown woman gets sick and tired of fanboys fighting over rape and justifying it to themselves nad other fan dudes.
Rape shows what people really think about women. So the nice liberal feministy dude might hear of a rape case where their favorite hero is accused of it and go, "She's a gold digger." Because powerful men don't need to rape, goes the theory. Need to rape. Because rape is really only sex, amirite, and sex is a need. That only men have, it seems, which in turn leads to the justifications for other things that affect sex-starved men only, like prostitution, because sad unfuckable dudes are entitled to sex with someone else's body. Sad unfuckable women don't exist, because their job is to be fuckable. When fuckable is your job description, well, goes the thinking, isn't rape really impossible?
Yeah, I wish. Funny how rape becomes impossible when you can blame it on women.
If your hero is doing it, it might be bad because your choice of hero reflects on you, I guess. I don't know. There's a lot of over-identifying going on with some of these dudes, these accused rapists or rapist apologists, and that should be worrisome. It's like some dudes, I swear, might not be rapists themselves, but they fanboy about it so that just in case, in the future if they want to use that particular male right, it's still there for them to use, just because.
Or who knows. Why get defensive over it? If your hero is a rapist, all you have to do is....oh. That's right. I was going to say, dethrone the guy as your hero, but can't do that, can you?
The fanboys of Westeros get very angry about the rape and sexism in their special fantasy world. Rape is realistic, they whine. So is sexism that keeps women down, these are primitive times! Or would be, you know, if this place existed.
In these books, rape and savage treatment of women are unavoidable. These are the basic plots for women. So feministy, that Martin dude.
The notion that a fantasy world could not contain rape is hilarious to some fanboys. Observe the outrage when Sadie Doyle stripped the pretense away and pointed out that the books contain thirteen-year-old girls (Sansa and the whitest white girl ever Danaerys) being raped or molested at every turn, or being lusted after in such a way that the lusting dudes are considered tragic or whatever. See, it's tragic if a guy doesn't get what he wants, but with a woman? She doesn't deserve shit unless she's a good woman.
How do you know you're a humorless feminist? Because you daydream about fantasy where the heroes are women and they get to be fucked up and still drive the plot and wield the swords and in this totally imaginary world, the heroes are guys who actually do more than want to fuck them. Because in this world, when there is rape, it's considered not shocking tee hee omg how hawt, but disturbing and ugly and offensive. It's not held out in front of fanboys lke the carrot----with the women always fearing and getting the damned stick.
And one thing that doesn't get remarked-on enough is how Sansa is set up to be hated because OMG she's such a giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrl, likes pretty things, and dresses, and boys, and how Ayra is a tomboy (imitating boys is great!) and likes swords and horses and mud and shit. Of course, they hate each other. Of course the fans hate Sansa and love Ayra, and of course Sansa is nearly assaulted every frickin' day. Martin, that notes feminist, never seems to think there's something wrong with having two girls set up as yin and yang----and then making the yin (or whatever) the one who everybody hates, while the yang gets all the love---and coincidentally, purely accidentally I'm sure----faces fewer assault threats than any woman in the series.
That's so feminist. OMG, I need a cold compress. Women hating other women, that never gets old.
(Anybody remember that troll in the early days of this blog, where, when I criticized some horrible anti-feminist woman, declared that I was no different from, say, Phyllis Schlafly or whomever? Because criticizing women who try and actually take away other womens' rights = taking away other womens' rights? Yeah, fun times.)
Of course it's just not possible to love pretty dresses and dogs and music and boys and also love dirt and activity and swords and bows and arrows and wearing pants because you can be more active. Nope. There's two kinds of women: women who wear dresses and are stupid or foolish or evil and get gleefully punished with rape at every turn, or tomboys who hate said foolish or evil or stupid women and who themselves reject femininity for imitation boyhood. Boys don't do anything similar to tomboying in any of these worlds; women are a lower class, after all.
So the fantasy is all about justifying the oppression of women and using rape as a reality, so it cannot be criticized. Even though: dragons. Zombies. The rape is the fantasy part of sci fi/fantasy. Now, why on earth would that be any kind of problem?
Please spread around the previous post. She hasn't put up her auction yet, but when she does, I'll post it here. Until then, every little bit 9f help is welcome----and needed.
I am once more reduced to pecking on a phone keybiard that makes my eyes cross. However, the nice computer repair guy can use the money.
She's facing foreclosure Friday if she can't come up with two mortgage payments. The total is $1300. She's diabetic, but she can't afford insulin---which costs $700---or even the doctor visit to get prescribed the less expensive stuff. She can't even buy the test strips to test her blood sugar. She's selling off Star Wars memorabilia on ebay. This is like something out of Dickens. I'm going to replace her computer power supply and see what else I can personally come up with.
She's another soft-spoken geek, cheerful against the odds, but nobody should have to fight this fight on their own. There's lots of people out there; if every one of us donated a buck or two---less than a cup of coffee costs----we can help her. Then we start figuring out what we can do in the long term. Hey, I'm making plans to move there. Can you imagine the geeky movie nights?
I'm trying to think of an incentive kick in thing I can do. If I donate a dollar or five dollars for every thing she sells on Ebay, would that make people donate more? I don't know. I just know this is a horrible situation and I want to make it better, and I think that's what lots of people think when they run across this.
A cup of coffee or two. I think it's a great investment. And if you can't, can you boost the signal? We can do this. We've saved other people from foreclosure, from being booted from their houses, found homes for cats. I can't describe what you all have done for me. I wouldn't be alive today except for some of the people that read this blog.
Her paypal is Jaegamer at gmail dot com. She also edits manuscripts for people. And there will be an auction set up tomorrow or the day after. Let's get going.
But, you guys, I'm also really repressed, and those little gestures have touched me more than I can say.
