Nec Hoc Nec Ilud

* Boka Haram murdered 2000 people Friday.

* Melissa Harris Perry had by far the most nuanced and grown up conversation about the Charlie Hebdo murders in a French and Global context that I've seen so far. It lasted the whole show, so I'm just going to link to the start. http://on.msnbc.com/14GnMIk

* "Why The Lack Of Media Coverage Of The NAACP Terror Bombing?:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-lack-of-media-coverage-of-naacp.html

* "Robber barons and silicon sultans:" http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21637338-todays-tech-billionaires-have-lot-common-previous-generation-capitalist

* "Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island (and One That Was):" http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/07/02/name-changes-ellis-island

* "Fearing NSA, Writers in USA and Worldwide Avoiding controversy, keyword Searches:" http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/worldwide-controversy-searches.html

* "Phyllis Schlafly: Campus sex assault is on the rise because too many women go to college:" http://www.salon.com/2015/01/06/phyllis_schlafly_campus_sex_assault_is_on_the_rise_because_too_many_women_go_to_college/?utm_source=nar.al&utm_medium=urlshortener&utm_campaign=FB

Note: She also thinks it would be a good idea to force everyone not born to the 1% to work aprox: 48 hours a week at manual labour jobs plus presumably a second job to pay for food and housing while going to college. I am confused as to when she thinks they will have time to go to class let along do all the homework.

Obviously this is secondary to her massive endorsement of rape culture, but I thought we should to a moment to think about how incredibly classist and out of touch Republican thinkers are these days as well as being generally pro-rape, anti-education, and against women having any chance f economic success or personal fulfillment.

* "Every Internet Conversation With Dudes, Ever:" https://medium.com/the-archipelago/every-internet-conversation-with-dudes-ever-6e17bb4b906d

* Incredibly cool intersectional Disability Sensitivity Training Video

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* "Loco Parentis: You Pretty Much Get It:" http://the-toast.net/2015/01/06/loco-parentis-you-get-it/

* "I Have Asperger's and I Read Your Comments Too - Empathize This:" http://empathizethis.com/stories/aspergers-read-comments/

* "Russia Bans People With "Gender Identity Disorders" And "Disorders Of Sexual Preference" From Driving:" http://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/russia-bans-people-with-disorders-of-sexual-orientation-from#.ijM5vY4bE

* "D.C. march to honor Leelah Alcorn draws hundreds:" http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/01/10/d-c-march-honor-leelah-alcorn-draws-hundreds/

* "Transgender Community Speaks Out About Suicide:" http://news2share.com/start/2015/01/10/transgender-community-speaks-out-about-suicide/

Our kids deserve a better world than we are giving them.

* "Call For The Ballroom Community And Allies To Boycott Saks:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2015/01/call-for-ballroom-community-and-allies.html

* This needs to be a Thing: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3602#comic

* "Cat interrupts German weather broadcast and demands cuddles!:" http://www.iizcat.com/post/1211/Cat-interrupts-German-weather-broadcast-and-demands-cuddles

* "Super damsels - Strong Women in Peril:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2015/01/super-damsels-strong-women-in-peril.html

* "The Winter Long (October Daye #8) by Seanan McGuire:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2015/01/the-winter-long-october-daye-8-by.html

* May I add, we have colonial era divorce records. It wouldn't be a new idea to Crane. "Sleepy Hollow, Season Two, Episode Twelve: Paradise Lost:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2015/01/sleepy-hollow-season-two-episode-twelve.html

* "American Horror Story, Season 4, Episode 11: Magical Thinking:" http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2015/01/american-horror-story-season-4-episode.html

* "16 Hilarious One-Star Reviews Of Children's Books:" http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/hilarious-one-star-reviews-of-childrens-books#.aoZvmwzE3

* Help my friends adopt two cats: http://djinni.livejournal.com/516743.html

* Our Financial Situation continues Scary: http://www.gofundme.com/cuovwsma

* The G8 is now the G7, Russia being dumped for invading the Crimea.

* "GOP ties US hands on Ukraine with odd demands:"

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* There was a deadly mudslide in a little town called Ossa South of here on Saturday. The numbers of missing aren't firm. They have confirmed fourteen dead.

* "Oil spill fouls coast on Valdez anniversary:"

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* The Michigan Marriage Ban got struck down Saturday and approximately 400 people got married before the Appeals Court put the stay in place. This means the couples are in legal limbo.

* Chris Christie declares has completely cleared himself of any wrong doing in all the abuse of power/corruption/misappropriation of funds that his administration performed under his watch based on a report he paid for. The investigators were so through they didn't interview any of the key players in the multiple scandals. The New York Times claims that this completely exonerates Christie even though they haven't seen it yet. After all, Chris Christie paid a million dollars of tax payer money for an investigation to clear himself, so it must be complete true and accurate and totally unbiased. Riiiiiight.

* I see the gun rights extremists have food my Tumblr again. *Sigh* I should probably get the program that blacklists stuff as I don't particularly enjoy ableist insults in place of political debate, but I have no idea what it's called, where it lives, or how to use it, all of which means it's likely less work to wait it out like I did last time. I still don't see how wanting the assault weapon ban back, limited clips, and universal background checks means I want women to be raped and murdered, but they assure me that this is the case. Normally I'd engage with the ones who have valid points and arguments, but the field of strawmen means I'd have to dig through a lot of illogic and hate to get there, which quickly stops being worth it, especially on a post long enough ago, I forgot it existed.

* I got a few hours of sleep and then called the HOA to find out WTF on the latest threat to find us, this time because Squirrel left his blind down. Yes, they really were only giving us one business day to replace Squirrel's blind and we better do it before 5PM. No, we couldn't just open the blind even though they were fine with that same blind in the same condition last inspection. Luckily, Squirrel figured out how to get the mountings off and it wasn't that expensive. I am fascinated to see what bullshit thing they will threaten us over yet. As I also had a UPS to wait for and I estimated a minimum of five hours for the great stored document sort, I set to on that.

I did actually sort all the things, though two big stacks had to be rough sorted as I have neither time nor energy for reading what turned out to be a massive amount of correspondence. I found "Bjorn to be wild" Jason's love letters early in the storage clearance, but was expecting to find most of a school year's worth of daily letters from my Soldier. (He would write every day while we were parted and mail them in a lump every week. It's a lot of writing in his tiny, but very clear print). I did plan to go through them as I haven't looked at them since they went into storage when I came North. This wasn't the surprise.

No, the surprise was how much other stuff turned up. I could rough sort out things too water damaged to read or cards with no letter included and keepsakes and playbills from things that I don't much care about anymore, but the rest? OMG! There were all sorts of things from dead relatives I need to look over properly, and correspondence from my Father's next younger sister that she wrote me before I knew what sort of person she was. There were a whole bunch of things from friends, mostly from my first and second college, including a huge mass of things Karjack sent me when she was in Germany. I remembered corresponding with her, but the volume took me by surprise. I don't think I'd ever looked at them in aggregate before.

There were a surprising number of letters from guys I was with in my teens. ( Possibly TMI, so cut just in case: ) I suppose it's time to look through them, but not right now, when I'm feeling pulled ten directions and I need two or three times the hours in a day to get it all done. I am kind of curious what's in... I was going to say some of them, but it's more like most of them. I remember certain specific things, but not sufficient for the volume of letters, so there are likely to be all sorts of things I've forgotten in there. Seriously, there aren't that many things from the last nineteen years, as e-mail ate the letter as an art form, and while I printed things like my Dad's last couple years of email before he died when I left UofO on the grounds the account was going poof, after that, very little went into the box.

Looking at the mass of boxes I'd reserved during this process for reboxing, it amuses me that even the moving boxes have stories. These vodka boxes were grabbed off the back stairwell of Campbell at St. John's Annapolis, as we had a last few things to pack before going West for good. Here is a Curly Fries box from Dairy Queen, taken home from work as I was packing to go to college in Eugene. This box was mailed to a frenemy in Corvallis, likely during the Annapolis evacuation. That was mailed to the Pepto Bismo House on Hilyard. The Blackwell and Info Serves boxes I grabbed from the loading docks of the Knight Library, where I worked, during one or another move during my second college. My life in cardboard and addresses.

My room is livable again, though it won't be right until I've completely sorted and cleared the storage unit, since I have stacks of half full boxes waiting to see what else turns up. I also need to start breaking down the cardboard wall I have built closet side. I then had all the stuff to clean up and put away in various rooms post sort. I did the important stuff, though it took some more hours. Apparently, I also inherited an antique silver tea service. It looks very familiar, but I can't remember which of my Mother's side relatives owned it. I have no idea where I'm putting it, so I left it wrapped. I need to reorganize the kitchen again to deal with all the china anyway. And then there's the stuff now stacked in the bathroom. And the bureaucracy stack, and getting stuff ready to mail, and, and, and...

* I found "You Kill Me" genuinely engaging. I do enjoy a dark sense of humor, the acting was excellent, and while they telescoped the process of trying to get sober, they treated addiction as a serious thing.

* I'm reading "The Princess Bride" for the first time as part of the BPAL group read. I love the move, but never read the book. My impressions so far:

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I wanted so much to love this book the way I love this movie, but so far that's not happening. It's a bad sign, when I want to put down the book so I can watch the movie.

* TW: Discussion of the use of Rape in the Anthology, also zombies. "Back to our roots: BOOK OF THE DEAD.:" http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/563012.html

* OMG! W. Kamau Bell, one of my favorite famous people was on At Midnight tonight! I missed him after his brilliant show got cancelled, okay?

Y'all know how I feel about spoilers, and the Night Vale folks are asking people not to ruin the experience for people later in the tour. As a result what follows will discuss the live show Welcome to Night Vale experience in general, the act providing the weather, and the Neptune theater, where the performance was held. It will not contain quotes or plot spoilers, though there were many fascinating things I would love to geek to you about.

First off, I'd like to mention how fun the crowd was. There were folks with tee shirts and the like, but there were also some absolutely wonderful cosplays. There were the expected hoard of Cecils and many Carloses. There were interns and Dog Park Interns. There were eternal Scouts. There were all sorts of people in Night Vale inspired outfits. In our batch there were two, count them two, Glow Clouds. The batch after us had a really amazing Hooded Figure with glowing red eyes. We were on line from super early on and the group behind us had a voluble Cecil and some Dog Park Interns who were roll playing a lot of the time either with each other or other passing groups. I loved the crowd itself which felt like Family between all the deliberately geeky Cecils of various genders and the gloriously androgynous make up of the crowd in general. It felt safe. It felt like home. I was in my wonderfully warm Harkness cat with my Carlos/Cecil tee underneath. Apparently there is quite a lot of Night Vale/Torchwood cross over, and I made some single serving friends with people who wanted to talk to me about the coat or the show. I love this fandom so much. I think it helps that the podcast was so deliberately diverse from square one in all dimensions. I haven't felt this "among friends" in a crowd of strangers since I came North.

The Neptune Theater itself is beautiful with classic mouldings, deco touches, and fake stain glass murals. There are Neptune head lights with glowing green eyes. They had made an attempt to make the theater accessible with ramps, but the ramps were super steep and hard for me to manage. I'm a bit concerned about trying to get a wheelchair up some of those steep gradients or under control on the down gradients. I did see they had cleared space for a lady in a wheelchair in the main auditorium, and the nature of the seating makes that part easy, but it was hard for me as a person using a crutch and with balance issues to get in and out without endangering myself and others and the ushers were not flexible enough to let me get in through the front of the seating rows even though the show had not started yet and letting me go the safer aisle would have hurt nothing and inconvenienced far fewer people.

I need to talk about the ushers just generally, because denying me use of the wider aisle in the seating area for no obvious reason was not the real problem. No, the management had stationed an elderly usher up by the toilets and he was gender policing the people using them. No, it wasn't just me. I was clearly bowling down the center aisle gender expression wise, which being my intention and preferred expression wasn't an issue. I get that that makes people worry. The usher down below sensibly hedged her bets and neutrally told me that the Woman's was on the right and the Men's on the left. This is reasonable and appropriate for a customer service person unsure as to the gender of the customer addressing them. This is not my complaint. The issue was the elderly male usher challenging gender ambiguous people going into the restroom, including another member of our party as well as myself. This is never okay, but you'd think at a concert venue, particularly one in which I'd guess at least half of the audience for this particular show was presenting androgynous if not more, they'd let people pee without having to defend themselves from officialdom. Jesus Fucking Christ, if you see people striding (or in my case confidentially gimping) toward the restroom, leave them the fuck alone. They are on a possibly time critical mission and the contents of their pants is not your business. This is not in any way the fault of the folks from Night Vale, since I don't see how they could know that this beautiful and funky theater in the University District of Seattle was apparently run by gender policing assholes with a policy of harassing their fan base. Yes, We do intend to write both the Night Vale folks and the Neptune Theater to let them know what was going on last night.

I should probably also mention that the lines for concessions and merchandize were extremely long and it's likely best to pick a person in your group to do all the purchasing while the others grab seats. I don't know how big the other venues are, but ours was packed solid with scalpers trying to sell tickets to the sold out show. Best to make a plan in advance if you are going with friends. I was in the second row center, so right up close. Our party being large we were in a lock in the second and third row. We also cleverly arrived super early for general admidssion, hence us getting to sit together

* And now the show itself:

( No spoilers, I promise: )

So short version: if you have a chance to see the Live version of Night Vale, do it! It's the same in all the ways one wants it to be, but with a whole lot of added dimensions that can only be experienced by a large group of really excited and happy people crowded together in a performance space

* The flooding disaster in India has been catastrophic. 600 are confirmed dead, but 5700 people are still missing, presumed dead. I have no words.

* Yep, South Florida is exactly that racist. George Zimmerman was found innocent.

* "Told Y'all:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/07/told-yall.html

* Cory Monteith has been found dead in a hotel room. No foul play is suspected and an autopsy will be forthcoming.

* "Congressman who used to be a high school English teacher irks GOP by marking their memos with a red pen.:" http://www.happyplace.com/25021/former-high-school-teacher-congressman-irks-gop-by-marking-their-memos-with-a-red-pen

* "Here's How to Wash Your Hair in Space:" http://mashable.com/2013/07/10/wash-your-hair-in-space/

* "Malaysian Transwoman Appointed As Political Secretary Hopes For Equal Treatment:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/07/malaysian-transwoman-appointed-as.html

* I have just been terribly disappointed by Clockwork Fairytales. ( TW: Pedophilia: )

I do recommend Steven Harper and Jay Lake's stories particularly, but I can't recommend a collection that includes something as disgusting as "The Steampiper."

* My Scented Home Products Circular Swap is looking for people to sign up: http://www.bpal.org/topic/81082-summer-scented-home-products-circular-swap/

* The Clutch:

* More than 1100 are officially dead in the Bangladeshi factory collapse. The woman found alive after seventeen days appears to be recovering. They are close to the bottom of the wreckage.

* Dixiecrats, Bleeding Kansas, and the modern Republican argument for Nullification:

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* Marriage Equality and Minnesota:

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* A huge conversation on Poverty starts here: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/49263362#51859385

* Melissa Harris-Perry on Remembering Huey Long:

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* "Researcher finds earliest evidence of human ancestors hunting and scavenging:" http://phys.org/news/2013-05-earliest-evidence-human-ancestors-scavenging.html

* They have found some proof that Justinian's Plague really was yersina pestis: http://www.livescience.com/29498-plague-helped-destroy-roman-empire.html

"Climate Milestone: Earth’s CO2 Level Passes 400 ppm:" http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm/

* "Proposed bill that would regulate NSF research funding faces backlash:" http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/proposed-bill-that-would-regulate-nsf-research-funding-faces-backlash/

* "After passage, same-sex supporters express bliss:" http://www.sctimes.com/article/20130509/NEWS01/305090067/After-passage-same-sex-supporters-express-bliss?gcheck=1

* ""Choice" is not a simple answer:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2013/05/choice-is-not-simple-answer.html

* Greenwick found, A piece on what Depression is like from the inside: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

* "Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation:" http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/me-generation-time/65054/

* "Lorena Escalera-One Year Later:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/05/lorena-escalera-one-year-later.html

* rm is so much better at this than I am. "The Great Gatsby: Horror, property, and nostalgia:" http://lettersfromtitan.com/2013/05/12/the-great-gatsby-horror-property-and-nostalgia/

* Want to see something extravagantly beautiful? Clouds, Birds, Moon, Venus: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130512.html

* "Prospect of “radicalized, authoritarian” Maldives threatens all nations: former president Nasheed:" http://minivannews.com/politics/prospect-of-%E2%80%9Cradicalised-authoritarian-maldives-threatens-all-nations-former-president-nasheed-56444

* They have arrested the person who tried to poison the President and a Mississippi Senator. It sounds like he has a history of threatening letters which made him easy to track. There were some other suspicious package incidents across the county. There was also someone waving a gun about at the capitol, but no one is hurt. They think they have a picture of the Boston Bomber leaving the bomb at the marathon. Bombing cases can be slow, because of all the forensics involved. I'm guessing they are holding details back right now and as they aren't calling for tips, they likely have a good idea who they are looking for. So investigation ongoing with that.

* Is anyone surprised the Republicans are filibustering universal background checks? Remember how I said we need filibuster reform and how I was furious with Harry Reed for wimping out? Yeah.

* "Thatcher's Funeral:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2013/04/thatchers-funeral.html

* "Three Girls Like Us-One Year Later:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/three-girls-like-us-one-year-later.html

* neo_prodigy responds to a troll: http://neo-prodigy.livejournal.com/1109329.html

* Cat Update: The day we hydrated the Butt, I noticed he was really scared of the other cats. According to Squirrel, his sister has been bullying him hard. I suspect she's not clear on it being him. He came back smelling funny, moving different. She has decided to ostracize him. Squirrel's moved a feeding station into his hidey hole and Hector and I are going to lengths to make him feel safe and welcome when he's out and about. (Mache doesn't bully. She will slap a cat down if ze disrespects her or gets in her space uninvited, but she's politically fairly withdrawn these days. She's old. She hurts. She wants to sleep and soak up pets, mostly.) Today the Butt came out twice for goosh as well as water runs. He's calmed down around Hector and has decided that they are still buddies. Squirrel's seen him going in and out of my room when I'm asleep, but he's not coming for cuddles. There's been a massive territorial shift since the Butt's been sick, with him living almost entirely in Squirrel's room and LM living almost entirely in common areas. The Butt has been eating and drinking well the last few days, but he's still scary thin and he's lost a lot of fur.

* If you have not gotten your hands on a copy of "The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination:
Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius" you are missing out. Like most anthologies, some stories are better than others, but trust me, they have a high consent ration of A+ pieces and while I'm only half through, there have been no clunkers and I'd give the worst story a B+. Seriously, they have pieces by folks like Austin Grossman, Seanan McGuire, and my beloved David Levine. Some of the pieces are pretty dark, more are wickedly funny. While I can't swear to the whole anthology as I'm not done, it's delightful and terribly hard to put down. This is the most exciting thing I've read in a while.

* I not a Boomer so my relationship with Fleetwood Mac is not what theirs is, still, I feel deeply uncomfortable with using something as powerful as "Landslide" to sell beer. I find that song borderline physically painful in it's intensity. Having clips of it playing over and over in ads is gong to be torture.

* I have gotten to 1979 in Barney Miller. It's the Jack Soo retrospective. At the time, we didn't know Mr. Soo had cancer and that he was dying. They'd covered his absences with "temporarily reassigned" throw aways like they did for nearly every member of the regular cast at one point or another. Knowing he died this time, it was a little chilling. At the end of his run, they gave him an episode where he got to explode about the way they took him for granted. It was a beautiful bit of acting, and heartbreaking knowing that he was literally dying as they filmed it. Then there was the temporarily resigned thing. Then Wojo was reorganizing the files, a sign they thought he wasn't coming back. Now the memorial episode. Damn. How strange I am upset all over again all these decades later, maybe more upset than I was at the time.

* Melissa Harris-Perry addresses the double standard in a law designed to starve children, shame single parents, and create a permanent underclass in Tennessee:

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* "Thousands of Medicare cancer patients lose chemo because of sequester:" http://americablog.com/2013/04/medicare-cancer-patients-sequester.html

* You know how I keep saying that white supremacist terrorists are by far a bigger threat in the US than the other types? The Republicans are pitching a fit over a report that points out that is quantitatively true: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/07/645421/right-wing-extremism/

* Honoring Jackie Robinson:

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* Melissa Harris-Perry Addresses some fucked up things going on in the NCAA lately:

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* The AP style book has just changed their guide to talking about immigrants. They have banned calling human beings "Illegal" or "Illegals." People may be "undocumented." Activities can be illegal, but not people. This may seem like a small thing, but it removes a pejorative used to harm people from a major news source. It may seem like a small thing, but it's progress.

* "Kelly Young Killed In Baltimore:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/kelly-young-killed-in-baltimore.html

* "Instigator Of CeCe McDonald Case Sentenced:" http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2013/04/instigator-of-cece-mcdonald-case.html

That's right. She got 180 days for what is clearly a hate crime and felony assault. the woman she attacked got 41 months in jail for the crime of self defense.

* This Esquire piece from 2010 had me in tears towards the end, "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man:" http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

* My table top is official for 782 CE. This will somewhat overlap the old campaign, but I don't think it'll be a problem, given what the players were up to the last couple years it ran.

* I have a huge stack of stuff to read, both for my game and from the reader suggestions y'all made. I'm reading the ILL's first, even though they arrived later, as ILL is often nonrenewable. The reader suggestions were for books with same sex romantic leads that are both alive at the end of the book. The first one I finished was The Sublime and Spirited Voyage of Original Sin, a swashbuckling Sapphic Pirate romance. This is not a profound book, nor is it intend to be. Instead it's a straightforward adventure/romance novel with strong female leads. You get pirate battles, you get the rescuing of damsels, you get seduction, you get sex scenes, you get a pretty satisfying character arc for the view point character. I think this would be terribly fun beach reading. There is a place in the world for well written fluff with likeable characters and as that was what I was expecting, I wasn't disappointed. The only real problem is the way the black characters are portrayed and that the only named black character is a villain. It's something that bothered me all the way through.

* Big Wired interviews Dennis Upkins at Norwestcon! He's got two novellas coming out: http://big-wired.livejournal.com/321740.html

* This gets at a particular sort of assholery going on in complaints about this years Hugo nominations: http://corabuhlert.com/2013/04/04/hugo-nomination-reactions-or-why-the-fuck-is-this-controversial/#more-6413

* "All Our Heroes Are Bastards:" http://jaylake.livejournal.com/3131870.html

* "The 25 Best Photobombs of All Time in the Universe Ever:" http://www.funnyist.com/the-25-best-photobombs-of-all-time-in-the-universe-ever/

This entry was originally posted at http://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/299710.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Okay, I'm going to write more on things that were wrong with the evil Dead Remake, so spoilers ahoy! I'm not kidding. I give away some big plot twists and most of the ending. I can't figure out how to talk about this mess without discussing this stuff. Note bene: I never saw the first Evil Dead movie as it was not available for rental where I lived, but the remake Evil Dead 2, was ubiquitous, so a saw it more times than I can count. I saw the third one first in a theater, but have seen it countless times. as a result, when I reference the Sam Raimi works, I'm referring to 2 and 3.

( Spoilers here: )

* Greenwick's North Korea round up: greenwick.livejournal.com/197005.html?mode=reply&style=mine#

"The North Korean people are not stupid or evil. Don't judge them. Judge the people making the decisions, not the people who are trying to survive, and be glad you don't have to navigate the life they do."

* Yet more Christian domestic terrorists pile on the death threats in the hopes of denying women access to health care. Brave women continue to stand up for what's right.:

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* North Carolina Republicans are trying to put in a poll tax to prevent college students from voting as part of their attempt to dismantle Democracy:

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* The brave Fast food strikers and MLK at the sanitation worker strike in Memphis:

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* Guantanamo Hunger Strike:

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* Roger Ebert is dead of cancer at seventy. Siskel and Ebert were the Burt and Ernie of movie reviews. I watched the show nearly all my growing up (My parents started watching when the show first came to our area and I watched with them. Their debates appealed to my family as we also loved analyzing books and movies. Our discussions were friendlier than the early years of Siskel and Ebert, but the dynamic made sense to us. As a teen, I once did a Siskel and Ebert skit in French camp where we reviewed them movies we'd seen in class and ended with a choreographed fist fight. I still smile, remembering it). Mr.Ebert was ubiquitous and I loved watching him and Siskel and then Roper dissect and argue about the merits and flaws of films all the way up until he went off the air. I have huge respect for his principled call for the media to stop treating mass murderer like celebrities with theme songs and the rest. Since the cancer took his voice, I have thought often about that, what it must have felt like to be silenced completely, and to later have only the computer voice, drained of it's richness. He poured that richness onto the page, but I know something about silence and I the thought of his silence haunted me. I was aware of his failing health, and though his death wasn't exactly a surprise, it sure does feel like a loss to know his cranky ass isn't somewhere pouring out snark.

Another little piece of my childhood died with him and he will be missed.

* Some obits and commentaries for Mr. Ebert are under the cut:

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* The actual statistics measuring the Republican Disconnect from objective reality:

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* Colbert weighs in on some incredibly offensive things Jeremy Irons said about marriage equality:

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This is incredibly disappointing to me given how I felt about Brideshead Revisited as a tween.

* Colbert on the BRAIN Initiative:

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* "A one word explanation of why the slippery slope argument men marrying goats and adults marrying children is not going to be a result of marriage equality:" greenwick.livejournal.com/197159.html?style=mine

* I have begun the process of prepping to GM in Ernest. I've brainstormed a bunch of hooks, started recording details I'm likely to need, and started the massive process of composting data. What do I mean by composting? I pour in all sorts of historical detail, folklore, character studies, myth. I periodically stir the mess and keep pouring in new stuff and reminders of old stuff and through a chaotic process of connection ad intuition, all sorts of strange things pour out. I need a lot of plot hooks and compost to grow a game. This is because my GM style is extremely interactive and improvisational. For sure I have plot and often intricate politics, but these are like the bare melody in jazz, around which the players an I build wild improvisations, startling descants, and strange bridges to other tunes. I have rules like, "Give me at least a week's warning if you wan to travel to another country, so I can build some things for you to do there." I expect the players to express things their characters want to do so I can better tailor opportunities to them. I do often horrific things to the characters, and am a big fan of giving players all the rope they could ever want to hang themselves and then heaping consequences to their actions onto them. Some of the most powerful passages come from the unexpected collision of player desires with unusual results. The composting process can look bizarre. A weird variety of books accumulate all over my apartment: serious histories, children's books, game world background material. My terse notes in my idiosyncratic handwriting forming anchors to strange souring cathedrals of thought full of humor, whimsey, and startling cruelty. I am still fascinated by the alchemy of gaming group micro cultures, the way players, characters, setting, and GM style create customs and rituals and ways of interacting that shift over time with personnel changes. I love watching the accretion of habits and rituals, the way the players themselves pass on group quirks to new members, the special magic of group storytelling and in jokes. Much like my teaching style, my hands on the reins are very light. I only want the bare minimum of control I need to keep the whole mess moving and functional, the best moments in gaming like teaching are the ones not planned and one needs to leave space for pleasant surprises and be ready to run when they pop up. I've known railroaders who plan each moment and I find their process as alien as they likely find mine.

I think of my Mother's delight on discovering a "volunteer tomato" patch grown up from the garden compost one Summer. I feel that way whenever the players and I together grow something rich and strange in a completely unanticipated way.

* I have been struggling with how to explain the "Princess Academy" to y'all. Some of you have likely stopped reading already because of the title, and that's a shame. This book is clever and subversive. My best description of it likely won't make you want to read it either. It's a book about girls saving themselves. It's a book about how intelligence, education, and collective action can right injustices. See? It sounds dull, doesn't it? But it's not. The prose style is surprisingly poetic and the world is very rich and well drawn. It is more Anne of Green Gables than the fairy tale setting you are likely imagining, and the girls in the academy are tough, hard working mountain girls who've known real starvation and grief, not the pampered princesses you likely pictured from the title. My library copy had abstract forms of girls walking, some together and some separate, dwarfed by their mountain. I think this makes more sense than the covers they show in the review I'm linking you. Why? Because the Mountain is a character in the book, and the book is about learning to bridge the spaces between people made by assumptions and preconceptions. It's about the power that determined people can have when they work together. The writing is more Middle Grade than YA proper, but I think this story is compelling and important. As I struggled so hard trying to explain how I felt about the book and why, I'm linking you the Slatebreakers review which will likely be more help. http://slatebreakers.com/2012/09/10/review-princess-academy-and-palace-of-stone-by-shannon-hale/

* I wrote this in response to a lady wanting to know why people pick graveyard scents on the BPAL forum:

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* Republicans really ramp up the attempt to strip women of a variety of basic rights while claiming that they just need to pretend they don't hate women and women will start voting for them again.

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* It turns out that the Vietnam War went on an extra five years because Richard Nixon torpedoed a peace agreement so he could become President.

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* More coverage of the refusal to properly investigate or prosecute the murders of black men in Mississippi:

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* ( More Steubenville Developments as the community continues to punish the victim: )

* "Chinese archaeologists excavate earliest bronze armor pieces:" http://www.kaogu.cn/en/detail.asp?ProductID=3931

* Another Robin Hood Theory: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9919400/Robin-Hood-from-Kent-not-Sherwood-Forest-historian-claims.html

I'm not convinced there is a single origin. There were at least three outlaws named Robin or Robert between the Norman invasion and 1100. There is a long history of outlaw stories and a long history of aristocratic outlaws and guerrilla warfare stretching through the whole Medieval period. My belief is that common people liked to hear stories about people tricking nobles and nobles liked stories about patriots fighting invaders. A wide variety of outlaw stories, some political and some not were likely circulating for centuries. I'm willing to bet this William is one of them along with a huge bunch that accreted in the 14th century during a period of particularly intense outlawry early in the centenary. I suspect that over time, the "Robin Hood" brand was a good way to get paid to tell or sing stories of this type and for a local village storyteller, Robin hood stories were good for a pint. It was simpler to take stories about this sort of outlawry and/or guerrilla warfare and change the names to fit with the developing mythos. I'm not convinced that there is any one origin for the stories, but rather a gathering of stories of a type under one set of names. I am very willing to think this particular bandit was a major contributor of elements and stories to that mythos, but I don't think it's provable that he is the one true source even if he was actually the origin. Some things aren't knowable.

* George Takei and the effort to conserve the internment camps: http://www.preservationnation.org/magazine/2013/winter/back-story.html

* "The Myth of Black Homophobia: Why I’m Not Feeling Macklemore and Why White Saviors Are Anything But:" http://www.ankhesen-mie.net/2013/03/the-myth-of-black-homophobia-why-im-not.html#

* Round up of some of the bizarre things said at CPAC:

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* Today I discovered my rifle coat was torn. It's not properly fixable from an aesthetic perspective, but it is from a structural perspective. I am rendered coatless as leaving it as is will only make it worse and thus harder to solve. Luckily, it's the cool part of early Spring instead of proper Winter. Speaking of which, more of the bulbs have survived the great painter disaster last Summer. How do I know? They are starting to sprout. The early bulbs are not quite ready for flowers, though last years hyacinth is an early bloomer and will be ready to come in in a day or too. It is weird to me to have two of the hyacinths beat the crocuses to blooming. It's not quite warm enough for me to go barefoot, which says to me it's not warm enough for Mache to have walks, but she begs to differ. She complains every time I go to check on the garden or bring in groceries. I know full well that if I do walk her in the chill she will beg to come back in before I'm properly settled. Soon, Mache Girl, Soon. (The Butt isn't going anywhere until he's seen the vet).

* Midnight Blue Light Special was a fast fun read and I liked the ways it dug deeper on characters and the world while really upping the stakes. The John Barrowman autobiography is very John Barrowman. I'm kind of sorry I read it as there were things I didn't need to know and images I can't get out of my head. I'm picking away at my Lorca pile. Poetry goes slow for me because of the way I process words. I read fiction and non-fiction super fast, but I process poetry more the way I process music, so I can't go faster than the spoken word and often have to reread.

* Death Star Truthers:

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