Lissiel's Journal

This post was almost titled "I would hit that in a New York Second". Cause, um, WOW.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_EfVtiUBSc&feature=channel

Also, Tokyo Hotel?


...I am not learning German now. T.T Who said German guys could be hot now? And he's a twin. Cripes.

/Edit: Oh man. IOWA got marriage equality before we did? Fail, California. Faaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiil. -_-;

So, Cal made a post a few days ago about gender-expression and naturalization in the context of role-play. I didn't comment there, because it didn't seem appropriate to a post that was mostly talking about one person's individual feelings on the subject? But I've been thinking a lot about what xie said, and I think I'd like to tl;dr about it as well, a little bit.

( Femininity, Performance, Pleasure, and the Teal Deer )

And now, to make up for the tl;dr, have a pic of Finn begging at the picnic I had with my family this morning. <3

OBAMA WON!!!!!

I was linked to this from one of the election threads I'm following tonight and...I mean, it might be kind of late to say anything else about prop 8, I just. I got to about halfway through, when Rabbi Feinstein said, "My faith supports the right to marry, because as a Jew, I have the responsibility to fight for justice, to act towards righteousness, and to help bring goodness into the world," and I started crying like a little baby. I type this right now with a little white furry nose tucked firmly under my chin, because Finn hates it when I look upset.

You hear so much about people of faith fighting this, tooth and claw, about the depths they'll sink to in order to deny that LGTB people are people too...Hearing these ministers, priests, rabbis talking about a loving G-d, about faiths and communities that are welcoming and loving and supportive for ALL their members... it was powerful, ok?

It was powerful.

So, I'd guess you're all really sick of hearing me talk about the election, but... It's important. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming after the 4th. In the meantime:

http://theremina.livejournal.com/224143.html
This link is a video by a woman who wanted to capture the behavior of Yes on 8 protesters. She didn't interact with them or go closer to them than four feet until they approached her. She was screamed at, verbally threatened, had her phone stolen, and assaulted.

We can't let this kind of person dictate our moral choices. We CAN'T. We are BETTER than this.

I'm going to be joining the protests against Prop 8 Sunday and Monday here in San Jose. If you live in California, you can sign up at this webpage to join a protest in your city. Please-- talk to people. Display a sign, if you can get one, or wear a button or post in your blog or join a protest. Fight this. And most importantly--VOTE. This isn't an issue you can afford to leave to someone else. It's really not.

OH NOES!!!!1 THAT POOR CUTE LITTLE GIRL FORCED TO SEE HER DIRTY LESBIAN TEACHER GET MARRIED!!!! WHAT DO HER PARENTS THINK?



...Er, wait. What? Yes on 8, surely you didn't just...

Protecting the children, huh? How 'bout protecting them from political exploitation first?

Also? This is fabulous. <3


/Edit: And WTF is this? THREATS now? Yes on 8 has to try and extort donations? ...maybe, you know, if you have to lie to and threaten people in order to convince them? Maybe you're wrong.

Probably you all know about the pitched campaign that the Church of Latter-day Saints is waging on behalf of Prop 8. Maybe you've read news articles about it, or seen some of their adds. Lately, they've had a flyer--also used by other opponents of equal marriage rights--on the supposed consequences of not passing Prop 8.

This morning, a morman lawyer posted a memo on why this entire argument is "untrue" and "misleading". To those in support of Prop 8: If you have to lie to reasonable people to convince them to vote yes, then what does that say about your valid arguments? Lies and bigotry speaks poorly of ANY religion.

http://www.noonprop8.com/downloads/Thurston-Memo.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbiO5qDfGS0

Went to con this weekend. It was pretty fun. I got to hang out with L and Kiwi and Cadence, who are awesome and with whom I had a lot of fun. I think L telling me about discussing whether she'd published any novels with her grandfather was kind of hilarious and one of the highlights of the con for me. I also attended a couple of really interesting panels--the ones on internalized misogyny and classic plot structure stand out in particular as really entertaining. Probably would have been more fun if I'd gone with a friend, but T mentioned she might be interested in going next year, so... hmm. Pond put up her writeup already, with a pic of the four of us in P3 cosplay which--wow, I look really fat next to kiwi. I'm kind of weirded out by that. But we look awesome as a group, so. :D

Er. What else? It's kind of a blur for me, to be honest. There was a lot of sitting up in the video room/library until roughly four and then getting up at seven for early panels. (I finally saw a bit of the live-action Antique Bakery, which apparently aired in japan and then fell off the face of the internet, too, which was exciting.)

My puppy spent the whole time I was gone, according to mike, curled up in his little nook by the door, making the misery face. And then FLIPPED OUT when I got home, spinning in circles, knocked me down and sat on me until I'd pet him for like half an hour. It was pretty cute.

Now I'm home safe and have only the absurdly huge piles of homework I didn't do last friday. *grin* Laters, all.

/edit: There are moments when I love my generation. Truly.

I can't remember the source, but there's some sci-fi story I've read where the conclusion reads along the lines of "They could withstand the fiecest of our weapons, they could defeat us intellectually, but in the end, I think they died of sheer culture shock" - the looks on the faces of the scientologists when faced with a crowd in which a lone voice shouts:

"I HEAR TOM CRUISE HATES MUDKIPS!"

(all) "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

... how do you fight that?

How do you, ideologically speaking, defeat a crowd that is enthusiastically demanding that you "DO A BARREL ROLL! DO A BARREL ROLL!!" ?

You are a Social Liberal (83% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (8% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

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Kind of interesting, though I had the same problem with the economic questions as I do with most of this kind of tests: that I believe every individual should have the right and responsibility to support themselves and their community to the best of their ability (ie. I support things like adult education and a living minimum wage) without relying on others, but I also think it's wrong for a society to allow people to suffer without making some attempt to help them. Which. Is a bit complicated and leads to mutually contradictory possible answers to a lot of questions.

Also, the "Famous People" chart is...a bit biased, I think. McCain is a centerist, but Obama is a socialist? Er. So make of that what you will.

1: A short film on John McCain. Just in case any of you aren't registered to vote yet. Pretty damning.



2. We got a new puppy! His name is Finnen; he's an American Eskimo Dog, about eight years old. Our friend Jenny found him wandering about two weeks ago, no collar, no chip, really dirty and with sores from not being taken care of, and no one had mentioned him to any of the local shelters, so we ended up taking him in. And he is the biggest sweetheart EVER. He follows me around the house as I work, and slept on the floor next to my side of the bed until we gave up and moved his pillow. ( Click to see pictures of his adorableness.<3 )

Back over on LJ, some cool folks are running an auction to raise money to support the fight on Measure 8 (that would be the initiative to write discrimination into our state constitution that would ban same-sex partners from marrying and having the same rights as opposite-sexed partners again, for those of you who hadn't heard). Bidding opened last night at midnight, and will continue through the 15th; just today though, we've already raised over $2000.00. Everyone involved's being really amazing. <3

People are selling some really cool things; I've bought an original short story and a set of cute vegan sugar cookies personally, but there's also a lot of fannish stuff, quite a bit of sewing-skills-for-hire, some other crafts like hand-decorated notebooks or dolls or original paintings, and the like. Browse around; you might find fun stuffs, and it's a really good cause. My own post is here, if you want to commission something from me. There's already a bid up, but I've said I'd take the top two bids, so. :D

I know I'm kinda spamming here, but I think this needs attention brought to it:

The Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program
http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/173664.html

Short version of the background is ( Someone played Entitlement H0r and others didn't like it ) Further information is at the link above.

So, the OSWBEOUP (and Gentleman's Auxiliary) basically involves keeping an eye out for the people around you. If you're out drinking, and there's a girl at the bar next to you getting felt up by some dude her father's age and she looks really uncomfortable? This is a standing invite to break through the Someone Else's Problem barrier and go over and help her out. Ask if she can show you where the bathrooms are. Be Very Friendly (tm) at the creep until she can get away. Invite her to your table (if you can keep Creep from following). And guys? If you see one of your friends being THAT GUY? If you're watching one of your boys get some girl drunk to "help her be more friendly" or try to "wear down" some girl who's already told him no half a dozen times? Friends don't let friends be creeps. Take him aside and remind him that she's a person too, and not a thing he has a right to use. It's sad, but a lot of the time, when someone's being THAT GUY, he's not going to hear it when a woman tells him to quit acting like a creep, where he might hear it coming from you. Apply the "how would I like him doing this to my sister?" rule.

So yeah, class now. But! Check out the link. Click the links there. People have some really bright, important things to say in this mess, and some good things are coming out of it.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iHm_il0VpUD_F7REiip6c0WF36QAD90COLM01

Protesters for Hawaiian sovereignty took over Iolani Palace (seat of the pre-takeover monarchy) in Honolulu today. Crazy.

Friday is the Day of Silence, where students and faculty refuse to speak to call attention to the year-long silencing of GBTL people in educational situations by mocking, harrassment, and violence. Probably I will participate (though given how my throat feels, I'm not talking enough to make it much of a gesture anyway), and I thought--I don't know how many people who read this are still in school, but I thought I'd let people know about it anyway.

The wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postgenderism#Postgenderism

The idea, basically and as I understand it, is put forth that given future technology it will be possible and desirable that gender will be optional for all people; either different sexes/genders would be erased from the species entirely or that an individual would be able to freely choose and change their sex/gender. Some thoughts:

1. An important and influential work in this regard was socialist feminist Donna Haraway's essay, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181. In this work, Haraway is intepreted as arguing that women would only be freed from their biological restraints when their reproductive obligations were dispensed with. In other words, women will only achieve true liberation once they become postbiological organisms, or postgendered. However, Haraway has publicly stated that her use of the word "post-gender" has been grossly misinterpreted.

Firstly, this interpretation smacks of greater hate of female-ness than any kind of currently existing misogyny. Women can only be considered equal when they stop being women? Uh. Hmm. I'd like to read this book, see if some other interpretation presents itself, but I mean. Anyone who wants to say that women and womanhood as a concept are somehow inherently lesser, ugly, to be destroyed and avoided is just... I'm glad to be a woman, I enjoy it, I think femininity has qualities that are better and more appealing than masculinity for a lot of things, and that losing either would be really really sad and diminishing to the human experience. I like androgyny as a concept, but not as the only allowed or the only valued option.

2. Given the potential for advanced assistive reproductive options, postgenderists believe that sex for reproductive purposes will eventually either become entirely unnecessary or that all human beings will have the ability, if they so choose, to both carry a pregnancy to term and father a child, placing the entire need for gender distinctions and gender differences into question.

On the other hand, keeping our current(or similar) concepts of masculinity and femininity, along with easily mutable sex-assignment presents some interesting problems; when anyone can choose to be either female or male at any time, will hierarchical social systems just find another criteria on which to rank people? Will, as in many cultures with homosexual peoples, people be stigmatized based on which role they choose, or be expected to take different roles at different times of their lives?

3."It is also thought that posthuman space will be more virtual than real. Individuals may consist of uploaded minds living as data patterns on supercomputers or users engaged in completely immersive virtual realities. Postgenderists contend that these types of existences are not gender-specific thus allowing individuals to morph their virtual appearances and sexuality at will."

Quoted for most excellent coolness. <3 We've all seen programs like second-life, or virtual woman, where people interact through customizable avatars with both other avatars and with programs exhibiting some level of artificial intelligence. Some of you might have seen the headtracking for VR display video involving pretty ridiculously awesome graphics effects. Given these kinds of technologies--advancing all the time and gaining rapidly in availability and popularity--this is not as far off as some of the other options. This is more like the second option, but involves less attachment to physical realities and more to theoretical constructions of gender and self.


Some Questions:
1. If it were possible to do away with gender as a concept, would you want to? If so, would you want the resulting humans to be perfectly androgynous, or more aligned to the masculine, or to the feminine?

2. If it were possible to freely and frequently change physical sex, would you want to? Would you be comfortable with a partner/partners who could/did?

3. If you could participate in a fully realistic virtual social environment wherein gender was mutable and not linked to physicality, would you want to? Would you be comfortable with a partner/partners in such a construct?

This is such a bad idea, on so ridiculously many levels. Seriously, does anyone at the pentagon ever look at this stuff and go, "Hey, y'know what, guys? Let's NOT develop the technology to render a living creature a robotic droid helpless to whatever commands we upload to it's tiny brain. Let's just go get some beers instead."

Also, have an awesome comic on the subject.

http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000435.html

This might be a dumb question, but...this site? It's a joke, right? I mean... the "product" kind of looks clay-molded, and I kind of can't believe that something this cruel and dehumanizing could be real, so I'm kind of hoping that it's an art project or a societal critique of some sort. But, usually with that sort of thing? They include a little "just kidding!" disclaimer somewhere on their site, and I'm... just not seeing it anywhere.

( Slightly disturbing image under the cut )

Hopefully, it's a joke. Either way, it creeps me the hell out, kind of a lot. O.O

1.Ohmiya. I just. You two just keep on keepin' on, ok? I'll be... over here. In my bunk. Also, Nino. Seriously. ♥

2. Stephen Colbert. THE INTERNET HAS NO HEARTMARKS BIG ENOUGH FOR THIS. I mean. I truly thought I'd never wish to be registered to vote in South Carolina. BUT NOW I DO. /caplock abuse.

3. Kittens Because you can never have too many silly cat macros.

4. I want to make a whole website that just compares Sakurai Sho to lolcats. THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD BE GLAD I DON'T HAVE THAT MUCH FREE TIME. I know you're all very grateful.


What are some things that you loves think are awesometastic?

http://www.break.com/index/bush-worried-about-new-threat.html

Lol. Bush is worried about the zombie threat.

/edit: There is now downloads for music in the comments, if anyone wants them. :D Happy Pirating.