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And how I love the Greenham Common Women.
Were any of you there? Do you know someone who was? Any chance I can interview you/her (possibly him, if he was inside the fence) while I'm over in London or even in e-mail?
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Speak Its Name has a call out for well-written Lesbian Historical Romance.
To further that cause, and in the name of getting the most bang for a buck I can, I'm posting this list of books that are for sale at EnjoyIt which might be useful for research, reading, or sharing. Some lesbian, some historical, some factual, some fiction, some seemingly odd until you realize they're snapshots of a period of time- but if (when? maybe) I attempt something in this vein, these will have been some of my references.
In regard to amazonfail: yes, my shop's an Amazon Associates shop. I'm looking at other places: Alibris.com, Biblio.com, but right now it's still all posted up at Amazon. I'm shipping until May 25th, then it goes on hiatus until mid-July.
To spare the FL, a cut before the list of books, which I hope tickle your imaginations and help produce glorious new works!( Read more... )
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Swine Flu: This is the real deal, according to a friend of mine who's a very experienced infection control nurse.
So, what can you do?
1. Don't panic. Get educated. Be smart. Yes, it's infectious. Yes, it's scary. So be intelligent.
2. WASH YOUR HANDS. Early. Often. I don't usually like anti-bacterial soaps, but right now, I'm carrying Purell Hand Sanitizer with me (on my keychain, in my backpack, a bottle in the car...- yeah. Before and after the ATM, etc...) and using the sanitizer wipes at my grocery market's entrance. Yes, I know some people are sensitive to it, and can't use it. That's ok. Soap and water works just fine. But them as can, could, and that'll help keep germs from spreading via all those publicly shared things like ATMs and grocery carts. (and everything else you touch: doors, bus bench backs, etc. etc. but ATMs and grocery carts are known to be great reservoirs.) I've been informed about Vicks Foaming Hand Sanitizer also available. I put the whole listing so you can choose where to order from.
3. If you're really worried, get some masks. Just enough to keep your coughing from spreading in its usual 3-feet-in-all-directions cloud, and enough to keep other people's cough-cloud from getting into your nose and throat. (The only really useful scene in the movie "Outbreak" is the one of how airborne infection can spread. The rest of the movie is more or less melodrama, as well as geographically insanely incorrect.)
4. Remember: Infectious agents need very specific things to spread. A useful model is the Chain of Infection model: infectious agent, reservoir (where it lives when it's not infecting someone), portal of exit, means of transmission, portal of entry, susceptible host (and back around to the infectious agent, ready to swing through the chain again).
Break that chain at any point, and the power of the infectious organism is broken, too. This is why hand-washing works, why you should cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze (preferably not with the hand with which you're next going to touch the ATM or grocery cart, but by sneezing into your shoulder or the crook of your elbow).
To my friends who live in places already affected, my very best love and good wishes to you. To the rest of us, let's be good, and wash our hands.
[Editorial comment: This is why we vaccinate, even though it's likely that a vaccine for this strain of Swine Flu won't be available soon. Mechanism of vaccination, and some numbers: (Wikipedia article, WiseGeek article, and yeah, I know the objections to vaccination, I do, but I also know the huge dent in my Dad's back from where part of a rib was removed so he could have a pulmonectomy for Diptheria, and how crappy two weeks in bed with Measles worrying I might go blind was, and how scary Rubella was for pregnant women, too, and how horrible the deaths of the children who got Measles with secondary pneumonia in 1989-1991 in California were. {I worked in the PICU at Oakland Children's during that epidemic- It was not good.} If you're not going to vaccinate, fine. Just be prepared for the possible consequences not only to your own or your child's health, but to your community's as well, because it's work, dealing with an epidemic. Yes, the vaccine developers and manufacturers can do a better job. yes, we should hold them accountable. But, yeah- community health is the responsibility of the community, not the manufacturers, not even, in the end, the government. Of the people, for the people, by the people...etc., etc.) End Editorial comment.]
If you're sick, STAY HOME. Tell someone you're sick, but STAY HOME. If you must be out, cover your mouth, wash your hands early and often, eat well, drink LOTS of water (not soda), and go home early- don't linger about out in the world. MomsRising Petition for Family Sick Leave act. Yes, it's only one country, yes, it's only one segment of the population, yes it's a start.
x-posted, sorry for the repitition.
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Via ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jadelennox, Mike Gronstal explaining why he is effectively blocking the move to amend the Iowa Constitution.
Here, if the video won't work for you.
Transcript here.
Polite, thoughtful, reasoned, and very very clear. I think I'm in love with this guy.
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New listings at EnjoyIt: more movies, CDs, books. I've turned up a number of things that are not in Amazon's inventory: out-of-print children's books, young adult books, and adult books of all kinds: reference, non-fiction, fiction; and CDs. I'm going to scan those and post them here, in hopes that there'll be something you've been looking AGES for and this will re-unite you. PLEASE, if you would, when you to to Amazon, go in through my store: I get referral bonuses when you do, if you buy something there. And please, if you would, buy something from me (if there's something you want) or pass the news of my little store on to friends. It all helps. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's bought, advertised, or just said "yay!"
I think there're still anime/manga goodies at LoyalDreamer's place, so if you tend more that way, drop by and see what she's got.
Who knows? we might have those Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduation... out-of-the-blue "Because I thought of you!" presents.
Otherwise, sleep has been at a real premium, for no single reason. I'm sure hoping to sleep today AND tonight, though. Yoga/stretching/physical therapy program continues apace: it must be working, because a) I notice when I'm sore (which is good) and the difference between that and achey (which is not so good).
FINALLY nearly finished with these two little papers for Critical Thinking. This is where sleep is so essential- I can work, I can chat, I can sell movies. But I can't write good papers without adequate sleep. *sigh* in two weeks I'll have the house to myself for two weeks. I'm hoping to have that time to finish these, get them to the prof, and do any changes he wants.
I know there've been some sad things happen this week in friends' and acquaintances lives. You are in my thoughts.
The rest of you, be well, have fun, and blessings on ALL your heads.
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Once upon a time there was a Boy who Wanted a Pony.
He really, really, really wanted a pony.
His neighbor, a curmudgeonly stingy old bastard who had very little good to say about anyone, but who did, once he'd given it, keep his word, overheard the boy talking one day, and said, "Come clean out my barn, and I'll give you a pony."
Well.
Everyone knew this man kept his word. And there were witnesses. So, that weekend, the boy's mother packed him a lunch, and he walked over the fields into the rising sun to the man's barn.
The man greeted him with a shovel, said, "I'll be up to check on you at noon," and opened the barn doors.
This barn. This barn was full of manure.
Side to side. Front to back. Floor to ceiling. Full of manure.
The boy sighed, pushed his hat off his brow, and set to work. The man went back to his house, certain he would get some of his barn cleaned out, and not have to satisfy his end of the bargain.
At noon, he came up with a glass of lemonade (a gift of pity from his wife), and found the boy leaning on his shovel, wiping his face with his kerchief.
Next to the barn was a HUGE pile of manure. HUGE.
"My God, sonny," the man said, handing him the lemonade. "This barn's half empty!"
The boy took the lemonade, saying "Thank you." He took a long, slow drink.
Then, with a straight face, he answered the man. "Well, Mister- With all this shit, there's got to be a pony in there somewhere."
Especially for thenotorious04, because- well, because there has to be a pony in here somewhere.
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Paul Rodriguez narrates this one hour doc on salt in the water supplies of various parts of California, and how what we do here in the Bay Area affects and is affected by water use elsewhere, statewide water policy, and other things. I had a chance to see it tonight at work. It's well worth seeing.
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Chatelaine
She started with fairy tales,
reading along over her mother's finger
as the golden apple was snatched from
atop the glass mountain
and the giant's heart broke because
the three iron bands that held his chest
closed were breached, though that
chest was atop another mountain, and
his heart was not in his own care
at all.
Learning to read took all her time. She
loitered in the dictionary, following from one
word to another across the continents and down
the centuries, aching to hear Sanskrit
and dreaming with the monks of
books recopied by candlelight lighting
learning anew in some year yet to come.
She'd've lived in the library if they let you.
There are stories everywhere. Baseball
games, heard across the hall from the
janitor's closet, in third grade:
epic poems of struggle, defeat, victory.
Too old to be read to
by someone else she drifted from
place to place: now an adult, now a
gypsy child, now responsibly paying bills,
now spinning a tall tale just to see
where it led, confusing her friends,
annoying her co-workers.
It took forever to finish school.
She was thorough, and easily distracted.
One sentence led to another page, to another book,
to another subject and another story
and every paper was due the next morning,
with references cited, and a cover sheet.
She learned MLA and APA and Chicago this way
and pocketed them like the keys to treasure
maps.
She wears the keys at the waist of her skirt
hidden away in her pocket as she walks
the halls of her life, learning her trade,
seeking permission to be silent, to go
on about her business without hindrance
or regret.
Her gift is to appreciate both key and lock
and the moment of unlocking.
Not to know what treasure is behind the door,
or under the lid, or hidden in the code, but
to believe that it is there, that precious
gift that, unique unto itself, answers
some need perhaps as yet unstated, unheard
by anyone but her and the story told
by an unfinished storyteller.
No wonder it was broken, she thought,
when she reread the giant's tale so many years after,
seeking solace for her own pain,
absolution for the pain she'd caused
to others. If he'd kept it with him
instead of being so afraid of it,
maybe he would have learned to live with it,
like I'm going to have to.
[a/n title thanks to itstonedme at lj]
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A Satisfied Mind.
( lyrics )
Mediafire share folder
of versions, and a zip of the versions there.
ETA
more versions, and zip2
am looking for other versions, as many as you can bring me.
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So it's probably no secret that, once Kucinich was out of the race, I supported Obama.
And it's probably no secret that I've got some major disappointments about the Bush years, and that I'd like to see criminal proceedings against members of that administration.
That said (and don't defriend me until you finish reading- come on now, fair's fair)- that said, I think it's important to say this:
Someone had to be that President. It was gonna happen- someone was going to be the one who pointed out what Twain said, what Eisenhower said: if we let the military and the corporations own the country, then we don't. There's money to be made in fear, in hate, in anger, in war and raining pestilence, and corporations care about money. And corporations, Departments of Defense (War), are big, are impersonal, don't care on the individual level. They can't afford to.
But we can. We can, and we have to.
So. Someone had to carry the weight of showing just.what.happens when we don't. It was almost Clinton- he signed NAFTA, he signed GATT, he signed Don't Ask/Don't Tell- but he was too pretty, too charming, and the weight of that got slimed off him with impeachment-over-foolishness. He could have been nailed for Afghanistan, for Somalia- but the opposition let themselves be distracted by the sleazy side of him, and thus: the weight was still there to be carried.
So George did.
Not elegantly. Not intelligently. But he carried it, and his administration made sure that we, the people, learned all over again that it's our government, not the Department of Defense's government, not FEMA's, not General Foods' and Bechtel's and the NRA's and FMC's or whoever they are today, the corporations that make weapons and sell them to anyone (that's prostitution, not business), that destroy farmland in the name of mechaniculture and agribusiness (that's not dominion over the earth, that's just waste of what's been given to us in stewardship), that steal work a person can do for profits an entity that exists only on paper can reap.
Someone has to manifest the shadow- the Imperial America (Manifest Destiny, anyone?), the "Leader of the Free World" that can't free its own people from poverty, starvation-posing-as-affluence, from ignorance-induced fear. Someone had to, and George did.
I don't envy him. I think he could have done that more intelligently- I think he had criminal advisors and took the easy way out, and I hope he pays. I hope they all do.
I don't condemn him. The shadow was going to be manifested- it had to be- and now it's happened. I surely condemn what he let happen on his watch, just as I condemn Clinton- a Rhodes scholar, for fuck's sakes- for being a vain, pompous idiot and wasting glorious opportunities. Someone had to manifest that, too, and damn, but he did a good job.
So let's get on with the rest of it. Let's get on with educating our people, with sorting our differences, with making a real country out of this huge experiment called a Representative Republic. Let's each represent what we believe in- if it's that God's on our side, then be a representative of the most humane, most compassionate version of that you know (Mother Teresa said once, when asked how she did so much, that "I do what is in front of me. I trust to God to do the rest." He can handle the big scale. We need to do what's in front of us). George H. W. Bush said he counted on the 1000 points of light to carry this country through- isn't now a good time to light up, to come together and light up the shadow of America, and really let this country shine in a way it never has before- not by denying the worth of others, but by celebrating it and working together?
I like Kucinich, for all he says he saw a flying saucer. Hell, I talk to ghosts, and more than once told Death to wait for a patient of mine- better the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God (or as the Quakers say, "so I do affirm") than to lie. Before Newton and Descartes were the saints and the mystics; before Mao and Lenin the grace of poets and farmers; before the 500 years of planetary war and slavery and commerce we could claim to be separate, but we are all related now- your history is my history, and my planet is yours, and even though I can only live where and when and in relation to this now that I'm experiencing, I can acknowledge yours.
We're here, now. Obama's being sworn in today. Whether it's for four years or eight, change is gonna come. How do you want to be part of it? Where do you stand? It's not about him, although it is- it's about the arc of this country, this experiment, this dream- and it's about who you want to be, in that moment before you die, when you say "This is who I was, this is what I did." In that moment when the truth is all you have, what do you want it to be?
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Yes. I know. By all Cartesian/Newtonian/Western modern thought this is malarky. OTOH, it makes me think, makes me examine my life and my self (Platonic, wot? or is it Socratic? lol!) and moves me to learn, to think, to try, to care. So: as Herb Caen would say (or is The New Yorker, or both? Notes from all over: onward, to the horoscopes.
From Georgia Nicols Weekly Horoscope: Sunday, January 18, 2009 (Canadian)
All signs:
An Aquarian shift is taking place now. All kinds of unexpected surprises and opportunities will suddenly present themselves in different ways to different signs. (It won't be boring!) Mostly it's good. For those of you who always plow a steady line, your velvet rut might be shaken up a bit. (Hey, it's the rigid trees who are the first to snap in a storm.) But if you're light on your feet, flexible and prepared to go with what's happening, it will be exciting and rejuvenating! Change is often scary but I think most of the changes taking place now have the potential for good and something better. Nevertheless, even if you're ready to stick your neck out, button your top collar. Steady as she goes! ( signs individually )
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astronomy (Californian)
Free Will Astrology horoscopes for week of January 15, 2009 (Rob doesn't do an "all signs" so much as an "all people" in his blog: here are two excerpts from this week's:
From his book PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings:
As much as we might be dismayed at the actions of our political leaders, pronoia says that toppling any particular junta, clique, or elite is irrelevant unless we overthrow the sour, crippled mass hallucination that is mistakenly called "reality" -- including the part of that hallucination we foster in ourselves. We can't change the world unless we change ourselves.
The revolution begins at home. If you overthrow yourself again and again, you might earn the right to help overthrow the rest of us.
AND:
AT THIS PARTY
I don't want to be the only one here
Telling all the secrets --
Filling up all the bowls at this party,
Taking all the laughs.
I would like you
To start putting things on the table
That can also feed the soul
The way I do.
That way
We can invite
A hell of a lot more
Friends.
Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
( individual signs )
Copyright © Rob Brezsny @ Free Will Astronomy
Astrodienst (Geneva, Switzerland)
Astrodienst is a bit different in that it requires you to sign in with some birth data to get horoscopes. Since I know not everyone's going to want to do that, I'll pull up mine (Gemini):
Don't cave in
During this time most people have to deal with feelings of doubt, discouragement and inadequacy. Also you may find yourself unpleasantly confronted by the consequences of past actions that you hoped would simply go away. The challenge is to confront them without caving in and feeling hopeless. Now you will question whether you are doing what you should with your life. The temptation is to decide that you are not, and to give up. Others may try to convince you that you are on the wrong course and give you very demoralizing advice. Of course, you may in fact be wrong in some area, and there you should change course. But you must avoid the tendency to cave in. Evaluate what you are doing in your own terms, not someone else's, and decide whether you are acting properly in various matters.
Tarot.com Rick Levine (US, not sure where based) (Where I also check the I-Ching, Tarot, numerology, etc. when I stop by)
General Daily Horoscope
The Moon enters intense Scorpio at 1:21 am EST, reminding us that balance sometimes sounds better than it actually is. Now we are wise to take a stand, no matter what the consequences. However, we may overstate our opinions as communicator Mercury conjoins excessive Jupiter. This can be dangerous when combined with the Scorpio Moon's passion. Additionally the Moon squares Mercury and Jupiter, indicating stress between our feelings and our beliefs.
( horoscopes individually )
[And for those who've not partaken yet, Caroline Myss: Sacred Contract of America, and Invisible Acts of Power: Personal Choices That Create Miracles.]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xfMisqab8
11/6/2008
WASHINGTON – The following is an op-ed from Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. This editorial is intended as free use and can be quoted or published.
You can't take this away from me: Proposition 8 broke our hearts, but it did not end our fight.
Like many in our movement, I found myself in Southern California last weekend. There, I had the opportunity to speak with a man who said that Proposition 8 completely changed the way he saw his own neighborhood. Every "Yes on 8" sign was a slap. For this man, for me, for the 18,000 couples who married in California, to LGBT people and the people who love us, its passage was worse than a slap in the face. It was nothing short of heartbreaking.
But it is not the end. Fifty-two percent of the voters of California voted to deny us our equality on Tuesday, but they did not vote our families or the power of our love out of existence; they did not vote us away.
As free and equal human beings, we were born with the right to equal families. The courts did not give us this right—they simply recognized it. And although California has ceased to grant us marriage licenses, our rights are not subject to anyone's approval. We will keep fighting for them. They are as real and as enduring as the love that moves us to form families in the first place. There are many roads to marriage equality, and no single roadblock will prevent us from ultimately getting there.
And yet there is no denying, as we pick ourselves up after losing this most recent, hard-fought battle, that we've been injured, many of us by neighbors who claim to respect us. We see them in the supermarkets, on the sidewalk, and think "how could you?"
By the same token, we know that we are moving in the right direction. In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22 by a margin of 61.4% to 38.6%. On Tuesday, fully 48% of Californians rejected Proposition 8. It wasn't enough, but it was a massive shift. Nationally, although two other anti-marriage ballot measures won, Connecticut defeated an effort to hold a constitutional convention ending marriage, New York's state legislature gained the seats necessary to consider a marriage law, and FMA architect Marilyn Musgrave lost her seat in Congress. We also elected a president who supports protecting the entire community from discrimination and who opposes discriminatory amendments.
Yet on Proposition 8 we lost at the ballot box, and I think that says something about this middle place where we find ourselves at this moment. In 2003, twelve states still had sodomy laws on the books, and only one state had civil unions. Four years ago, marriage was used to rile up a right-wing base, and we were branded as a bigger threat than terrorism. In 2008, most people know that we are not a threat. Proposition 8 did not result from a popular groundswell of opposition to our rights, but was the work of a small core of people who fought to get it on the ballot. The anti-LGBT message didn't rally people to the polls, but unfortunately when people got to the polls, too many of them had no problem with hurting us. Faced with an economy in turmoil and two wars, most Californians didn't choose the culture war. But faced with the question—brought to them by a small cadre of anti-LGBT hardliners – of whether our families should be treated differently from theirs, too many said yes.
But even before we do the hard work of deconstructing this campaign and readying for the future, it's clear to me that our continuing mandate is to show our neighbors who we are.
Justice Lewis Powell was the swing vote in Bowers, the case that upheld Georgia's sodomy law and that was reversed by Lawrence v. Texas five years ago. When Bowers was pending, Powell told one of his clerks "I don't believe I've ever met a homosexual." Ironically, that clerk was gay, and had never come out to the Justice. A decade later, Powell admitted his vote to uphold Georgia's sodomy law was a mistake.
Everything we've learned points to one simple fact: people who know us are more likely to support our equality.
In recent years, I've been delivering this positive message: tell your story. Share who you are. And in fact, as our families become more familiar, support for us increases. But make no mistake: I do not think we have to audition for equality. Rather, I believe that each and every one of us who has been hurt by this hateful ballot measure, and each and every one of us who is still fighting to be equal, has to confront the neighbors who hurt us. We have to say to the man with the Yes on 8 sign—you disrespected my humanity, and I am not giving you a pass. I am not giving you a pass for explaining that you tolerate me, while at the same time denying that my family has a right to exist. I do not give you permission to say you have me as a "gay friend" when you cast a vote against my family, and my rights.
Wherever you are, tell a neighbor what the California Supreme Court so wisely affirmed: that you are equal, you are human, and that being denied equality harms you materially. Although I, like our whole community, am shaken by Prop 8's passage, I am not yet ready to believe that anyone who knows us as human beings and understands what is at stake would consciously vote to harm us.
This is not over. In California, our legal rights have been lost, but our human rights endure, and we will continue to fight for them.
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This is what friends do, remind each other of this:
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
~ralph waldo emerson
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| 2007-10-16 18:08 |
| PSAs |
| Public |
| between here and a nap |
| content |
| how to save a life/live sessions @aol/the fray |
| burma, charity, ecology, economics, fun, health, history, hope, kindness, philosophy, poetry, politics, psychology |
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No cuts. Not today.
The redemption of Cutler Beckett or Tom Hollander's charities.
Orlando Bloom and others design cards for Epidermolysis Bullosa charity
redscorner's Fight to earn enough to pay for brain surgery: quoted from verisimilitant. redscorner is currently suffering from two serious neurological conditions which require surgery, but she is unemployed, without health care, and unable to qualify for Medicaid. However, megaupload has this 'rewards program' where, if she can secure 5 million downloads, they will give her 10,000 dollars. She has until the end of November to do this. You can download once every day and each download helps. The files are txt documents that give more details about her situation. They are spyware, malware, and virus free and really only take a second to download. Help this girl out and, if you feel so inclined, post this in your own journal to help spread the cause.
1. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5QBOA940
2. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7LPXMESC
3. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0O8AYRES
Proof links are virus-free
Via rocketbalm
[My dad worked at RAND corporation in the 50's. I thought everyone had discussions like this at the dinner table and beach-side barbecues. Guess not, hunh. This is so well done.]
Please support something, anything, for the people of Burma. The US Campaign For Burma will take immediate donations, or you can buy The CD 'For the Lady' or one of the beautiful WEAVE scarves. Similar site is Burmacampaign.UK.
Do something for yourself. Make a journey into The Depths of Money and start saving yourself from drowning in debt, stuff, or need.
Be excellent to one another. Watch a good movie, take a good walk, read a good book, cook a good meal, have a good bath. Recognize the good and sacred in each thing, place, person, idea that crosses your path.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
- Walt Whitman
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