Only a few years ago, we had to watch “the news” on TV where we heard “the latest” about stuff like the Iranian election many hours after it actually happened. And if we were lucky, a few photos or video made it all the way to the studio without being confiscated or censored.
Now all we have to do is surf the net to see events happen practically in real time.
Gone appear to be the days when everything we saw could very well be manipulated by someone (powerful politicians, greedy network execs, etc) with a vested interest. Still happens, no doubt, but when anyone can hold a video camera and broadcast the action to the world within minutes, chances are good that what you see is what went down.
This is great for debunking popular myths, such as the one about women (especially middle eastern women) being the weaker, more passive sex.
In case you’re wondering what prompted these ruminations, it’s this excellent article by Mariam Aryai Rivera about how amateur coverage of the election protests in Iran are proving Iranian women are hardly the docile creatures we think they are.
But now, with the help of modern-day technology and amateur video footage, you can catch them drop kicking the cops and the Revolutionary Guard, and in a center-stage tragedy, taking a bullet to the heart. The women of Iran are in the house, and they’re in the front row.
This front-row female participation in social change has been way more typical than is commonly understood, mainly because men have written most of the history books. Women’s contribution has been trivialized and ignored, like their vastly important role in shaping human evolution (hint: it ain’t just gathering nuts).
But whatever - the internet to the rescue. It’s helping us all see the truth, one Youtube video at a time.
I don’t call this a revolution. Nor do I call this C.I.A.-backed interference. I call this a civil-rights movement, and there is no civil-rights movement in the history of humankind that excludes the power of women. Women in Iran are giving birth to something historic, and it’s not just with their wombs.
Word.
Technorati Tags: Iran, Iran election fraud
Filed under Human Rights, Politics | Comments (2)I subscribe to a lot of feeds on a variety of different subjects. I have almost as many feeds as favorites on Flickr. Don’t cost nuthin’, as Bluto would say.
Alas, so many feeds, so little time. I’ve had to actually work at work (geez) and we’ve already been over how much I loathe to spend my non-writing off-time sitting at a computer. Thus my Google Reader has become the cloggy, smoggy information highway to Hell.
Luckily Hell is why god made Sunday mornings.
Out of the buttloads of news articles I skimmed, here’s a list of those that made me go hmmm, awww, LOL, or WTF? Enjoy.
Oh yeah:
Image by Barry King/Getty Images, from eonline.
The spokesman for the group of lawmakers behind banning burqas in France says that “wearing the burka is a submissive act, and that… is contrary to republican principles.” Clearly they hope we’ll interpret this to mean the ban is about gender equality.
Je ne le pense pas.
I do not see anything in their statement about supporting women. At best, it is just ego, a la “What will the neighbors think?”
At worst, its a non-too-subtle attempt to oppress and intimidate a subculture.
Yes, we all know Islam has sects that treat women as inferior to men (kinda like Roman Catholicism, the primary religion in France). But the burqa is a symptom, not a cause. That’s what makes this so transparent.
If the French were really worried about upholding their “republican principles,” they’d work on fixing the legendary sexism in their dominant culture.
Technorati Tags: France, sexism, Islam, xenophobia
Filed under Miscellany | Comments (3)at the Earth Sanctuary on Widbey Island. The clouds are grey and moody this morning. My kind of adventure.
Little Red Riding Hood, illustration by Jeannie Harbour, uploaded to Flickr by finsbury.
Filed under Uppity Me | Comment (0)As if they know what it’s like to be pregnant? Like when they compare all women considering abortion to the mentally ill woman in France who, after giving birth, murdered her infants by burning and smothering them? Doesn’t the sheer brilliance and insight of that argument make us want to give up the right to decide what happens to our own bodies?
Technorati Tags: William “Asshat” Saletan, Slate Magazine
Filed under Asshat of the Day, Gynophobia | Comment (0)
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Yes Pecan, Ben & Jerry’s
Filed under Fucket Bucket, Men We Love, Politics | Comment (0)I know that’s what you’re all saying. Lucky for you I won’t require all your worldly possessions. But beware. You get what you pay for.
Most of the time when I don’t blog often, it’s because:
1. My ass hurts. I sit at a computer rewriting other people’s crappy stuff for about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Before work and on the weekends, I sit at a computer and write my own crappy stuff (though some days that means less actual typing than staring at the blank screen, willing it to magically resemble a fiction manuscript). So when I have “free time,” I often can’t bear to spend it sitting at a computer.
2. Inspiration is lost in self-induced oversaturation (you do not want to know how many feeds I subscribe to) and/or temporary wipe-the-brain-clean devastation (how many articles about the murder of Dr. Tiller can one read before all thoughts about it become “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH”?).
3. I’ve lost the will to live. OK, this one hasn’t happened yet. But you never know… my head is not a safe place to go alone.
Anyway, I have several posts written in my head that I hope to get onto the interwebs between now and Sunday. The working title of one of them is “Writing & Exercise: Separated At Birth?” Another one is about tinnitus, tentatively titled “It’s Always Something.”
Did I warn you or what?1
Technorati Tags: exercise, writing, tinnitus
I’m not feeling so swell today but I dredged up the strength to smile at this orange cutie. Reminds me of Baxter. *sniff*
I started my day by reading this article in Elle by Elizabeth Wurtzel about the most recent tragedy that has befallen her: aging. It’s 2:19 pm and I am still annoyed so I’d better get it out of my system.
First let me say it’s not like I can’t empathize with the initial weirdness of crossing the infamous 40-something threshold. After all, we women spend the first 39 years of our lives hearing the ominous “it’s all downhill from there,” so when we get “there,” is it any wonder that subconsciously we expect to find ourselves in a empty valley, mooing and chewing on grass.
Then we realize that we’ve been sold a line of bunk and we get on with our lives. Unless, of course, up til then we have made a career out of whining about our rotten lives.
In that case, we write four-page sob stories about how physically beautiful yet fucked up we were in our 20’s, and how now that we’re actually more beautiful on the inside, our outsides are cruelly abandoning us.
It’s a long article and there are some real gems in it that showcase Wurtzel’s apparent belief that there’s no silver lining that can’t be tarnished up good if you really want to, like this:
There seem to be more men coming around these days, and they keep getting younger as I get older—I’m an interesting, mature woman to a man in his twenties, while to a guy my age, I’m just jaded—but I think they are falling in love with a person I used to be, with a girl in a picture, with an idea or an image, not with who or what I am now. Because with every passing second, I feel I am less physically desirable, even though I’m finally, in fact, a desirable person. It makes no sense, it’s not fair, and it sucks.
She’s a desirable person now, yet somehow all these men just love an “idea” of her? Boo hoo.
“Now that I am a woman whom some man might actually like to be with, might actually not want to punch in the face—or, at least, now that I don’t like guys who want to do that to me—I am sadly 41. I am past my perfect years.”
I had to read that, like, five times to believe she said it. That’s got to be one of the most shallow and ignorant statements I’ve ever read.
Oh, no, wait. THIS is the most shallow and ignorant statement I’ve ever read:
[But] eventually, at some somber and sobering calendar date, most of us lose our looks and likewise one of our charms—and I will lose mine. At which time, for me at least, there won’t be much point to life anymore at all.
Please, please, please, Wurtzel - when that day comes, do us all a favor and take the pills because I do not want to read any more whining from you. Ever.
I know aging gracefully is a lot to ask of you. You’ve made name for yourself by yapping about your crazy-sexy substance-abused youth; you’ve got a hard act to follow there. But please, get over yourself and shut up before you manage to squeeze every last drop of dignity from your oh-so-edgy life.
GMAFB.
Technorati Tags: Elizabeth Wurtzel, aging, asshats
Filed under Asshat of the Day | Comments (5)I’ve never thought of myself as a huge Star Trek fan. As much as I like fantasy stories, I’m not into space dramas. So imagine my surprise when I found myself loving the shit out of the new Star Trek “prequel” movie.1
I would never have guessed how big an impression the original television series made on my brain.2 True, it was probably due more to sheer repetition than personal preference - if you had a t.v. in the 70’s you couldn’t miss the ST reruns that ran every two hours. But for me the show was just OK, something to watch until Little House or The Bionic Woman came on.
How could I have known that Spock was making such quiet in-roads in my heart that I’d get a tear in my eye when a really old Leonard Nimoy showed up on screen thirty years later?
What I like most about the movie is that they managed to pay homage to the original show and characters without either pandering or mocking. The actors have uncanny resemblances to the characters yet don’t resort to doing impressions. They managed to pull off the classic lines (”Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a scientist!” and “I’m givin’ her all she’s got, Captin!”) without sounding campy. They even replicated camera angles and postures - stuff I didn’t even realize was iconic until I felt the squee! of recognition.
And best of all, they used all the original sound effects - the bwong!s, bwip!s and chirpy noises that made the USS Enterprise so far out. Oh, except for the chshhhhhh-chah of the double-doors, but maybe that was the unintentional sound of cardboard sliding across concrete in the original.
All the actors did a great job, especially Zachary Quinto as Spock, who pretty much steals the show. Loved my Brit-crush Simon Pegg as Scotty - not enough screen time for him. My one WTF: Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock’s mother? Not that she did a bad job - I just didn’t recognize her at all.
Very few complaints over all. I have to say I felt the villain was a big yawn. I like my bloodthirsty bad guys to have a little personality. This one had tattoos. Where’s Ricardo Montalban when you need him?
Only other complaint is (you guessed it): How is it that with all the amazing discoveries humans have apparently made in the far distant future, the fact that miniskirts are impractical for work is NOT one of them?
And I don’t mind a little gratuititty as long as it’s equal opportunity exploitation - so if we’re going to see Uhura in her underwear, I’d better see Kirk drop trou next time.
Uppity out.
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Update: Five minutes after I posted this, I remembered that Kirk did drop trou in the movie. Maybe I wouldn’t have forgotten if it had been Spock.
