links for 2009-05-28
May 28, 2009-
“I don’t mean it like that, but…” So how many properties do you own? “I own a house in North Kensington which you’ve been to and my house in the constituency in Oxfordshire and that is, as far as I know, all I have.”
A house in Cornwall? “No, that is, Samantha used to have a timeshare in South Devon but she doesn’t any more.” And there isn’t a fourth? “I don’t think so – not that I can think of.” Please don’t say, “Not that I can think of.” “You might be… Samantha owns a field in Scunthorpe but she doesn’t own a house…”
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While I was in Harper, I took some photos for Right to Play. I have to say, it was a really fun assignment. Who wouldn't want to take pictures of kids having fun and learning to work together? Kind of awesome.
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Although these two are quite specific examples, they point toward the possibility of a worrying trend emerging. If – as lots of newspaper editors argued in evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee – it really is becoming much easier for individuals to sue newspapers, there's a real danger that we'll see minorities attacked by the tabloids with much greater abandon as they push the limits the Mail managed to reach with Polish people.
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In an earlier post, Mark mentioned that the construction industry in the comic book world must account for a large portion of the economy. I bet there is also a lucrative superhero / supernatural disaster insurance industry to deal with these externalities.
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As a young female journalist and aspiring novelist, I am routinely warned to never, EVER criticize men like Walcott. If I want to have a writing career, I am told, I need to shut up and smile and allow the Great Men of Letters to bask in their Greatness. Perhaps then they’ll let me sit in their laps, or something.
More importantly, we are taught to believe that certain men who Live the Life of the Mind can and should get away with demeaning women. Tom Wolfe can call young college women “sluts,” Derek Walcott can be the sort of man whom female undergraduates are explicitly warned against and not be the worse for wear, and so on. Not harassing or demeaning women is already seen as a tough business for your average man, but a man whose “brain is the size of a planet” cannot be held responsible as they are too distracted by their own brilliance to act as responsible residents of this sinful firmament.
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Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens!
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The nautical trend is always a spring favourite – fresh and fun, you can easily combine stripes with crisp whites, navy and red for a classic style statement. You can also add neutrals like grey and cream to keep things clean and simple. I really like this embroidered tunic with a blue linen skirt; and I've added a cardigan and fun striped flats for a more relaxed outfit:
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Jefferson was not a stupid man. Yet here he appears appallingly "stupid," earnestly explaining that blacks are weird because they (1) need less sleep than whites and (2) need more sleep.
The problem here was obvious: Jefferson had a deep need to claim he was different from his slaves. Otherwise, how could he reconcile his desire to think of himself as moral with his desire to own them? So it didn't matter if his "evidence" was contradictory and nonsensical. All that mattered was that he have it. And he was too powerful for anyone to force him to perceive this.
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It was then discovered that the BNP folks had not only helped themselves to a few stock images, but also bought a bog-standard store-bought puppet and presented it as an original character.
This meant that anyone could buy an identical copy of the puppet and use it to mock the BNP… which is exactly what I've gone and done. Many thanks to Mike Power for the finance and Chris Applegate for the idea.
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Surely the widespread need to tell such stories suggests a considerable anxiety, as well as hostility to the women who gave out the feathers. So why were men so very disturbed by this practice? Why did women continue giving white feathers in the face of such hostility? Which women did it?
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That. That right there is kinda what those trans people who choose to have (and are able to afford!) some surgery are feeling, when our doctors tell us that we're not committed enough in some way they've arbitrarily determined is important, and that we can't have our bodies be as we want them to be. That we're self-fetishizing freaks who only want surgery so we can get off to the image of our transformed selves.
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Predictably then, it's already launched another petition calling for the sentences handed down to be lengthened, despite all being sentenced to indeterminate sentences, with the paper seizing on how the mother could out within 3 years, the boyfriend within 8 and the lodger within 1, although to call that unlikely would be putting it lightly. It's also reopened the comments for the first time since they got out of hand, and they are also, wholly unsurprising. They also echo the Sun's dehumanisation:
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After lots of tears and screaming into the phone (oh, I was classy, let me tell you), I decided to do some research on that one little thing that I kept being told: "Lots of women have regretted it." Something about it just didn't sit right, starting with never being told how many women "lots" is, and also not being told, despite asking numerous times, what this magical age was when I'd finally be able to determine my own reproductive future.
Thanks for the link-love, love.
Great other stuff to read here as well.