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February 28, 2003
Over Two Hundred Scientists Named Steve Agree...
that "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences." On February 16th the National Center for Science Education released a statement to this effect. Why Steve? "In honor of the late Harvard zoologist and geologist Stephen Jay Gould, a valiant supporter of both evolution education and NCSE," NCSE representative Eugenie C. Scott explained. "We hope that the next time creationists present a list of 'scientific dissenters from evolution', reporters will ask, 'How many of them are named Steve?'"
Posted by me at 7:03 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2003
Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys!
Make me a pledge that you'll look for that phrase in this BBC article, ok? I love you so much.
Update: See, I'm behind the curve again. What's a girl gotta read to get clued in, around here?
Posted by me at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
LLLLLLLLLOINCLOTHS!
Loincloths! Loincloths! Hey, where's SK Thoth? He wears a GOLD loincloth!
Posted by me at 1:52 AM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2003
Anal Sex, Absinthe, and Bacon
In addition to having top-ranking sites on the Crip Walk, I also have the top-ranked site if you Google anal sex, absinthe, and bacon. Want to know who else does? Don't give me that, I know you do. Oh, c'mon. It's this guy. One of the more frankly sexual blogs I've read. I guess I don't get out much.
Posted by me at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
sack
I am the angry indignant sack. --AlyissaPosted by me at 2:06 AM
Incredible commentary on the WEF
Kellan posted a link to this journalist's up-close reportback from thr World Economic Forum already, but it yields such an amazing look at the thoughts of the world's superpowers that I thought the meme deserved strengthening.
And James has written up a review of the email's history at Lawmeme.
OK. I'm going to fucking go to bed now. I am so behind the curve that absolutely nothing I say will do anything for the betterment of anything; this story has clearly been around the pasture a few times. The last few days have yielded the awareness that I can't even do anything to influence the historical trajectory of the world on an individual level; Fabiola has been sucked into a modelling hoax which I can't talk her out of, Rigel is being inducted into the military any day now and can't be convinced otherwise, and Jacob doesn't fucking love me no matter how much I love him. I am going to take down this website. There's no fucking point.
Posted by me at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2003
Various personal notes
First of all, I was hoping I still have at least one reader out there who's still Mac-oriented enough to help me with a problem: My iMac is having trouble with its internal CD/DVD drive, and has been for some time now. When I put in a disc it tends to make noises which vary from a sort of repeated hiccup to a genuine out-and-out "hee-haw." While doing so it will hang for long (but not indefinite) periods of time; it seems to be trying too hard to read the disc, or something like. What this puts me in mind of is the "click of death" that older ZIP drives had problems with.
Can anyone out there tell me if this is the kind of thing which is a driver conflict, or some other internal thing, or whether this really is it for the old bag and I ought to give her up for a new machine? (I was hoping to trade her in against a laptop... oh well.) It's been making it hard to upgrade, as I can't get her to start off a disc on my external Que drive.
In other news, I was accepted to UC Riverside's dance history PhD. One down, five (UCLA, UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Teacher's College in education, UMass Amherst in communications) to go. FBAEW.
Update: I have to some extent overcome the CD problem and have finally (! how many years too late?!) joined the modern world-- I succeeded in installing OS X on my machine. I swear it runs slower than 8.6 is running on the old Performa I'm trying to soup up. I hate all the animation, and I don't particularly appreciate the fact that my computer is now better than me at chess, either. I would love to get a tutorial on accessing all the UNIX goodies from anyone who has a moment, though.
Posted by me at 4:18 PM | Comments (1)
February 19, 2003
LE FRENCHY-FRENCH SITE DE WEB
Various of my fellow citizens have taken it upon themselves to demonstrate their patriotism in ineffective and outdated ways, of late. What am I talking about? Why, the proud burgher from North Carolina who has ceased to call the fried potatoes he sells "french fries," of course. He's doing it to "support our troops." Because, of course, our troops will be less likely to die in a war fought on behalf of the President's oil-soused friends if he doesn't invoke the name of the people who don't want to see them die in said war to begin with. (???)
Fuzzy logic time! Yes indeedy! We here at the Dancing Sausage Web Journal are officially changing our name to Frenchy-French Website A L'Enseigne Du Saucisson Dansant Tout Amoureux Du Peuple Francais! From here on in we will publish only treatises with Frenchy titles such as "Vive La France" and "Voulez-Vous Couchez Avec Moi Ce Soir?"! The sausage graphic you see at the top of your window will be replaced with a lovely Frenchy picture of the Eiffel Tower, or perhaps a nice Frenchy poodle! We will cease to shave our armpits! To prove our love of France, we will move to Canada -- we think is mostly a cheap version of the US, but we hear it has some Frenchy people in it!
We here at the L'EDSDTADPF also wish to invite France to take the place of the state of Texas, to which it is roughly equivalent in size! Thereafter, as the Frenchiest member of the United States of America, the nation-state will be lovingly encouraged to contribute Texas's usual share of statesmen to the leadership of this great country, in hopes that this will engender in future Presidents a genuine desire to support the country's troops by sending them all home to their mothers alive!
We hope that these gestures of Frenchifization will clarify that we understand, agree with, and wholeheartedly support the decision of the French not to kiss George W. Not My God(d)amn President's ass! We also hope that the author's failure to use appropriate accents and tendency to use English words like Website when there must be a French equivalent (hey, we took all our French classes before 1995) will be seen as an act of typical American laziness and not be taken as disrespect for the French and their delightfully backwards tendency to want to protect their language against pollution by lesser languages!
(We would also love to hear from our French cousin Phillippe Molk, last known to be a rather gropey-handed seven-year-old resident of Chamonix with a tendency to pin his six-year-old cousins to the couch and French them.)
In other news, my Republican neighbor has actually sealed his windows and doors with duct tape and sheets of plastic. (I ought to be fair: maybe it had more to do with the blizzard than the fear of chemical attacks.)
And finally, from CNN, proof that some journalists are finally developing news sense about terror alerts:
Posted by me at 10:22 PM | Comments (8)
Peace Through Puppetry
A pretty well-known means of promoting peace, these days, with Bread and Puppet offspring showing up at virtually every march. But I just stumbled across the website of UNIMA-USA, the US arm of an international organization (l'Union Internationale de la Marionette) whose goal is promoting "peace and... mutual understanding" through the use of puppetry. Jim Henson was the first US chair, in 1966. Includes a directory of puppet theaters all over the US.
Posted by me at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2003
100,000 Body Bags
The US has sent 100,000 body bags and 6,000 coffins to a location in Italy, according to a Daily Mirror (UK) article published a week ago. I'm praying these will not be needed for the two people I know who might see combat. I am relatively certain they will not be used for Iraqis, who will be statistically more likely to need them if this mess starts.
IF. IF, IF, IF.
Posted by me at 11:56 AM | Comments (1)
February 16, 2003
Beast vs. Beast
Wrote up a really awful rundown of the protest yesterday and decided against posting it. Made some stupid, paranoid conjectures about police armaments and possible setups which might make protesters look bad while strengthening public support of Bush, none of which came to pass. Made a few comments about the signs, then found I couldn't come up with anything remotely interesting to say about the protest as a whole.
It was obviously tremendous, and the size and emotion of it were very heartening. Going to protests is staring to feel like work, though. I'm there to catch things on tape, and when the tape and batteries run out it's time to go home. Can't muster the excited prose I used to pound out afterwards, anymore.
Was also exceedingly tired and achy by the end; it was freezing out there, and I got stuck in some bad vantage points where I had to hold the camera overhead for long periods of time to little effect. Hadn't slept or eaten enough, either. Got pushed around by cops more than usual too, which took its toll.
What I ended up writing about was the mounted police. There were more of them than usual, and they were charging the horses around rapidly and really forcing them into the crowd. People were really scared, and the usual rumor that the horses are trained to trample and kick people surfaced. I paid them no mind. It was helpful that I'd had five years of riding lessons (thanks Mom and Dee) and had an ingrained faith that horses really are animals of instinct; they're not supposed to relish stepping on living things. Making my way into a swirl of riders, I pushed rumps, patted shoulders and said my hellos to steaming muzzles. Doubtless I'll lose cred for saying this, but I was happy just to be among horses again. (you know. it's such a fu(c)king bougie thing to say.)
Coming home with my neck all stretched out of shape from craning, and back aching from my kit bag, I wondered whether the horses laid down after the protest. The species standard is to sleep standing. All I really wanted was to be held, but I've screwed myself out of that kind of arrangement for now (so to speak).
It bothers me that in the face of something so huge and global and good, all I can think of is how I felt.
Been feeling totally werewolfish the past two days: all hunger and no control. Feel like I ought to be chained up before I mangle someone new. (At least *I* won't be mangling the American justice system.)
Posted by me at 7:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 14, 2003
What Happened To The Writers Who Were In World War I
Itamar recently introduced me to Cat and Girl. I've added a permanent link under "Fellow Travellers," but I thought I'd also specifically link to this thought about war that I haven't seen elsewhere. (I know, I know... I said I was going to bed. but I wanted more Cat and Girl.)
Posted by me at 12:46 AM | Comments (3)
February 12, 2003
Detritus: Push Me Pull You
Temp agency appointment the other day. Is there some reason that so many temp agencies in this city hire Irish women as receptionists? I would guess it's the accents, but maybe there's some network involved. There certainly is one for Irish men in construction and carriage driving in the city.
Everything went pretty well... this time there weren't two other people named Gillian in the waiting room like there were last time, so I felt less like fate was trying to impress upon me how unimportant I am in the grand scheme of things. My "agent" is an older woman who wears dowdy sweaters and a New York accent which almost seems to shape her. She was impressed enough by my resume, my computer skills, my radio voice... suggested a few horrible-sounding jobs which I acepted, gritting my teeth internally.
One of them will have a background check, she told me, to see if you've been in jail or anything. Oh, fine, I said, making too much eye contact. That should be fine. But there's no [grits teeth openly] drug test, is there?
(I had to do something wrong, right?)
She looked a little hesitant, but said there wasn't. I just find the idea of them so invasive, I said. So degrading I wouldn't take a job that required one, even though I've spent time being the biggest Nancy Reagan Youth brownshirt you've ever seen, I thought but didn't say. And of course I didn't have the ability to take that back.
Eh, it's only temp work. But I need, need, need to remember that not everyone I talk to in this goddamn city is Barbara Freakin' Ehrenreich. Something about wizened ladies with New York accents always, always lulls me into thinking I'm talking to kindly old Pacifica supporter, or shirtwaist-factory organizer's niece, or Lincoln Brigade vet's daughter.
* * *
I'm not even going to bother to write about my experience at the unemployment office this morning. Suffice to say it was a bureaucratic farce (on the order of the blind leading the blind), and the guy next to me was making masturb^tory grunts the entire time.
* * *
Went out to tango last night for the first time in months. Got taken down a few pegs. Certain people who I've bulldozed around the floor should feel somewhat vindicated to hear that I'm probably not going to continue carrying myself like God's gift to beginning leads anytime soon. I left after one lead said "Thanks" after just one song. ("Thanks" is a universal, unequivocal tango code for "That's enough for now," and is usually delivered after two or three songs, unless you're really digging your partner. After one song, it reads as "Jesus H. God, enough already! I need those shins, you know!" I don't know why this code doesn't seem to be in use in other dances.)
Watched my teacher, Rebecca Schulman, dance with one guy almost all night, apparently enjoying herself a lot. She makes me feel like my spine is klutzy. Hers is subtle and expressive. Who knew a spine could be expressive?
Revelation of the evening: Tango is one of the very few activities I can do with my eyes closed. The more the computer gives me eyestrain-related migraines, and the more my brain feels as if it is clicking through verbal stimuli even after I've stopped scrolling down the screen, the more appealing this is going to be.
* * *
Should really I end up feeling like my face has been sunburned after sitting in front of the computer for a few hours?
* * *
It hit me like a cartoon anvil recently that I have a pathological attraction to men I can't have access to. Not that this is any revelation. The whole non-communicative male thing has been an idee fixe for years. I have always prided myself on my ability to get "difficult" guys to open up; I also knew I had a hell of a time staying interested in anyone who was enthusiastic about being with me. Various fetish elements of this pathology have, in recent months, revealed themselves: long distance is a turn-on; guys lost to history are sexier; and, well... let's just say certain possibilities have recently provided for maddening frottage with various social, ethical, and legal boundaries.
so, I'm sorry, I guess.
Posted by me at 12:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 11, 2003
From the "Wish I'd Written That Headline" Department
"Grateful Dead now 'Dead.'" some BBC copy-editors have all the luck...
An excerpt: "...although they no longer considered themselves the Grateful Dead without Garcia, nor were they The Other Ones, instead being "on our way to becoming something new but at the same time very familiar"."
whoa.
Posted by me at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
All this time...
... I was convinced the word "erstwhile" meant "earnest." It's a damn good thing I rarely use the word.
Score one for the people who like to point out the fallibility of my verbal skills (yeah, yeah. Volapuk you, Irons).
Posted by me at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
I'm going to link to UFP again, OK?
I can't describe how it makes me feel to look at the list of feeder marches for Saturday's protest. I don't know if I even need to go; just imagining how incredible this will be, with all the music and colors and puppets and people, makes me feel less hopeless. I can think of people I know who might be in any of these blocs. Last night at the milonga my tango teacher was wearing a February 15th button at her navel. Maybe she will be in the Performing Arts bloc, pulling off a spontaneous leap in the middle of a turn like she did yesterday.
I remember at one point in my first anti-globalization march looking back down a road and seeing a giant pig float and some others and banners and colors and just thinking This is so big, thank god this is so big and lighthearted and warm.
Posted by me at 7:21 PM | Comments (0)
Protest Permit Denied
A federal court judge has denied a permit to the 100,000 people planning to march this Saturday. That's the one at which I'll be doing legal video work. The explanation they gave was that they've had a policy of denying permits to political protests since November 2002. Apparently Bloomberg also said something about not wanting to commit more cops to the event. Frankly, it's going to happen anyway, so I don't see why they don't just grant it... it will only make things more chaotic if they don't.
If you're in NYC and looking for a way to get involved, I'd recommend United for Peace. Among other things, they will prepare you to Samba For Justice!
Posted by me at 1:26 AM | Comments (0)
February 6, 2003
go to trade shows
a: I [have sex] to prove I can. that's a form of control. b: I just go to trade shows.Posted by me at 1:07 AM
February 5, 2003
From the Vaults: Eyebrow Problems?
I'd forgotten I'd ended up using that doctored image for something. Not that it did much good. This was another one of those parties that was either cancelled or consisted of three guests, completely unknown to each other up to that point, who sat around awkwardly in the uncomfortable chairs, staring at their feet.
Whose fault is it? Why do my parties never work? I blame the spooky spooky house I live in, with all the buckled plaster and chipped paint and quirks like metal molding. I'm trying to ignore the fact that now that Stephan lives here, there's at least one party every week, with plenty of people.
Posted by me at 10:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 3, 2003
things go right.
things go right sometimes, too. not this year, admittedly.Posted by me at 9:00 PM
February 2, 2003
Look Out, Old Macky Is Back
The International Action Center is reporting on their email list that a coalition of right-wing organizations, including the Free Congress Foundation (ok, here's their site) and the Center for Security Policy (can you BELIEVE the rhetoric?! "Vichy Europe?!" And they want to call the Socialists on their propaganda...), are developing a new House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate not just organizers but also protesters against the pending war on Iraq.
This report came coupled with a long, nasty whine that the Nation, NPR and other liberal media have begun to try to disrupt the movement against the war by questioning the presence of Socialists and Communists in the midst of "mainstream" protesters.
All of this is alarming news, but my first response was to pause. I have heard organizers -- ones who know whereof they speak, and are not prone to exaggeration -- describe the IAC as a front for a Socialist organization, so I'm not sure how big of a grain of salt I need to take in reading this.
The mail linked to an NPR interview between Terry Gross of Fresh Air and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the IAC (that link is a .ra file, sorry). It's worth a listen; Verheyden-Hilliard delivers a masterwork of staying on-message in the face of questions which would have caused a less-seasoned peace activist to haul off and deck the interviewer.
I found it interesting, though totally frustrating, how unacquainted Terry Gross was with some basic facts about the past few years' worth of activism. I guess her ignorance shouldn't surprise me. The conflation of racism and warmongering doesn't seem nonsensical to me, but it's only because I spent a few years at Hampshire and then at the Independent Media Center. Like Gross, I might also have been confused by the presence of anti-racist language and allusions to Mumia Abu-Jamal in statements made by ANSWER (the coalition in which the IAC and huge numbers of other organizations are engaged on the anti-war effort) had I not been through these things.
Similarly, her alarmist tone about the presence of socialists of various stripes in The Movement was frustrating. Their continuing participation in these movements strikes me as un-newsworthy as corporate crime seems to be to most newspapers. As the IAC points out, Martin Luther King espoused socialist ideas. Protesters don't tend to pay the presence of socialists any mind. They come with the territory. And yes, it's frustrating when they or anyone else starts to get loopy and say things that your personal close-knit group wouldn't espouse, but they're there, and they help you get things done, and that's what coalitions are about. Gross's inability to accept the terms of coalition-building was, well, gross.
I guess it just kind of annoys me that the Independent Media Center has been working to explain the rationale of these movements since 1998, and an NPR reporter, a "liberal" NPR reporter, wouldn't even have a clue about these things. It's sort of like, c'mon, Terry, we know everyone says you're a bimbo, but it doesn't mean you have to act like you're conducting an interview for Vanity Fair and you think you're all edgy because you can take the Left apart.
As for the IAC, I wish they didn't have to pretend they're not a socialist organization to do all this hollering about the new House Un-American Activities Committee; it seems so dishonest. I wish "socialist" wasn't still a dirty word in the US. Nobody even fscking knows what one is anymore, and yet you can still put the taint on a group by calling them that. We need to get up to speed with the rest of the goddamn world and acknowledge that socialists can take their place in a democratic discourse without it leading to totalitarianism. Not all socialists are about to go all Stalin on your a$s.
There ought to have been time to innoculate the American public against another round of McCarthyism, but we don't really teach people useful history (if I was doing it, I'd make a lesson called "Seventeen Ideological Mistakes To Avoid"). Now that the malarial mosquitos are rising from the swamp again it's really too late.
Posted by me at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack