Wake the Sun

Happy Friday, everyone! This has been a crappy, anxious, slice your thumb open on a can of hash kind of week, but either Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook or an uptick in brain chemistry has me full of joie de vivre.

Speaking of food! I made a batch of granola last night, loosely based off of this (Food Network, ha) recipe. I swapped the maple syrup (being out) for equal parts honey and molasses, swapped the vegetable oil for olive oil, and added a large dash of cinnamon. Burnt it a little (being slightly damp in the oven doesn't mean it needs to cook longer), but it's still delicious with plain yogurt and honey. Also dirt cheap - the rolled oats cost me $.27 from Kroger's bulk food bins and I had everything else on hand.

I also made an apple/gouda/prosciutto sandwich for lunch today. It was difficult to not eat it on the spot.

Excellent things on the internet:

* The art of Shintaro Ohata.

* ephemere's gorgeous book of calligraphy. Pre-orders are closed, but she says it'll be available for regular purchase early next year.

* GMHC's I Love My Boo campaign.

* Amanda Conner And Jan Duursema Create Female Superheroes For Nike. On one hand, Nike. On the other, awesome women in practical clothing!

* Kaleidoscope! Signups close tomorrow, so if you're thinking about participating now would be the time.

* The life of Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Freedom Fighter

* ( Music! )

I've skipped a couple weeks and people keep posting things, so this is a long one. Fair warning!

* First out of the bag, #yesGayYA. For those who haven't read it, he original post by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith is here: Authors Say Agents Try to “Straighten” Gay Characters in YA. cleolinda has the best/most exhaustive coverage I've seen and coffeeandink has a good roundup of pertinent links.

* Related posts not mentioned above include swan_tower's Followup on "Say Yes to Gay YA" and bookshop's YA Publishing & the de-gaying of books.

* Speaking of co-written YA books, while I was typing this up Justine Larbalesteir and Sarah Rees Brennan announced one of their own! It's apparently about girls and female friendship and vampires and it's got a girl of color smack dab in the middle of the cover. I am excite.

Moving on:

( Links about food )

( Links about US politics )

( Links about interesting things )

( Pretty pictures )

ETA: For The Next Few Days, Portal Is Free! For the computer, and you have to sign up for Steam to get it, but still. Sweet beans.

I didn't originally think this needed comment, but I've seen it linked a couple of places now and the Wrong is making it hard to focus on dinner. So.

There's a post, titled On the difference between Good Dogs and Dogs That Need a Newspaper Smack, that's being passed around the atheist blogosphere as a good Privilege 101 teaching tool.

It's not - not a good tool, that is - and if this is the level the progressive folks are at I can start to see the problem.

The fact that people are stupid isn’t news, however. And actually that’s kind of why the concept of privilege is important – because privilege isn’t about being stupid. It’s not a bad thing, or a good thing, or something with a moral or value judgement of any kind attached to it. Having privilege isn’t something you can usually change, but that’s okay, because it’s not something you should be ashamed of, or feel bad about. Being told you have privilege, or that you’re privileged, isn’t an insult. It’s a reminder! The key to privilege isn’t worrying about having it, or trying to deny it, or apologize for it, or get rid of it. It’s just paying attention to it, and knowing what it means for you and the people around you. Having privilege is like having big feet. No one hates you for having big feet! They just want you to remember to be careful where you walk.

This is the main issue throughout the post - the idea that privilege is just something that happens, like big feet or a thick fur coat. Privileged people are born with an advantage (true!) and it's not their fault the world is set up to support men/white people/straight people/the able-bodied/cisgendered folks/etc/etc/etc, that's just the way it is. Like magic (false!). You should be nice to people who don't have your privilege because it's the right thing to do, but don't worry about getting rid of it.

No. Privilege is a constructed reality, it exists because humans created it. Because of a long, terrible history of deliberate and non-deliberate choices/actions setting one group over another. It is constantly perpetuated by the people who benefit from that history, i.e. people with privilege. We should absolutely be working to tear it down. To tear white privilege, cis privilege, straight privilege, male privilege, able-bodied privilege - the whole damn kyriarchy - apart.

Back to the post, which consists mainly of a parable:

Imagine, if you will, a small house, built someplace cool-ish but not cold, perhaps somewhere in Ohio, and inhabited by a dog and a lizard. The dog is a big dog, something shaggy and nordic, like a Husky or Lapphund – a sled dog, built for the snow. The lizard is small, a little gecko best adapted to living in a muggy rainforest somewhere. Neither have ever lived anywhere else, nor met any other creature; for the purposes of this exercise, this small house is the entirety of their universe.

The dog, much as you might expect, turns on the air conditioning. Really cranks it up, all the time – this dog was bred for hunting moose on the tundra, even the winter here in Ohio is a little warm for his taste. If he can get the house to fifty (that’s ten C, for all you weirdo metric users out there), he’s almost happy.

[...]So one day, she sees the dog messing with the A/C again, and she says, “hey. Dog. Listen, it makes me really cold when you do that.”

The dog kind of looks at her, and shrugs, and keeps turning the dial.

This is not because the dog is a jerk.

This is because the dog has no fucking clue what the lizard even just said.

It goes on like that for a while. Again, no.

Men and women, queer folks and straight folks, etc etc etc, are not separate species. Our needs are not wildly divergent, we are not incapable of empathy and understanding. The house does not simply exist. People who abuse their privilege are not dogs that need a smack on the nose.

If you want posts that actually work as Privilege 101:

* White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
* Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog
* Privilege is "not."
* I Didn’t Dream of Dragons
* White people, its not all about you, but for this post it is
* "comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable" is not just a bumper sticker for me
* All of starkeymonster's 'for clueless white people' tag
* The Dos and Don'ts of Defending Muslim Women

Additions or corrections are welcome in the comments - I know other folks have made better link lists than this, but I can't remember where. Fixing typos and closing logic gaps will wait until the morning; it's somehow 11pm and past my bedtime.

* Same-sex marriage ('Or as I like to call it, 'marriage'') passed in New York, HELL YES. Colorlines, Boing Boing, and The Daily Beast all have picspams of the celebrations + Pride. As do most of the queer blogs on the internet, I'm pretty sure.

* I don't know who came up with this ice-cream ad, but bless them.

* On NPR: 'Being Elmo': Covering Raw Talent With Bright Red Fur

* Shelf-Pod is a house made out of bookcases Osaka prefecture, Japan, made to house the owner's collection of Islamic history books. It's beautiful.

* On Boing Boing: Tornadoes, climate change, and real scientific literacy

I've got a bunch of links re: Greece and another set re: podcasts to post, but that'll wait until later this week. Right now, have a puppy update:

( They keep growing, like magic. )

* Amina, of A Gay Girl in Damascus, has been reported missing (possibly/probably abducted) on her blog. There's weird stuff re: her existence going around the blogosphere (glass_icarus has more on that), but I'm sticking to reserving judgment and hoping she makes it through okay.

* Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood: When I think of the poverty-stricken, sexually and physically abused, self-loathing Native American teenager that I was, I can only wish, immodestly, that I’d been given the opportunity to read “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” Or Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak.” Or Chris Lynch’s “Inexusable.” Or any of the books that Ms. Gurdon believes to be irredeemable. I can’t speak for other writers, but I think I wrote my YA novel as a way of speaking to my younger, irredeemable self.

* On Colorlines: The Ultimate 21st Century People of Color Sci-Fi List

* The Andrew Loomis figure drawing books are back in print *____*

* Internet Archive becomes archive of physical books, too. The Internet Archive, alarmed to see that many libraries discard books after they are digitized, has decided to start collecting copies of every book ever published, cataloging and storing them in modified shipping containers that serve as long-term archival storage. The stored print-books are to serve as canonical references for the digitized editions.

* They've added two new elements to the periodic table!

* The first volume of The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal is up on Kickstarter

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* ladiesbigbang is open for signups!

* scifi_fest is also open for signups.

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On X-men: First Class*:

* The Quintessential Mutants of America and Mutie Go Home by Ta-Nehisi Coates

* Race and Women in X-Men: First Class on The Mary Sue

* marina wrote an essay about Erik as a Holocaust survivor. She's also got links to two other great posts.

* ETA: the Racialicious roundtable

* Which I saw Tuesday night and, well. These essays made me care more about the movie than the movie did. ALSO: Armando/Alex 4EVAR. If comics!Armando can come back from the dead (like every other X-Men, ever), movie!Armando can do it too.

On the DCNu:

* The good - Static's getting his own title! Also John Stewart and Guy Gardner are getting a buddy book. I usually don't care about the Lanterns, but this could be amazing.

* The ambivalent - Jaime's getting his own book. Which is awesome! Except it's a reboot and the original was so fantastic (and so recent, DC, c'mon) that I'm worried this new version won't stand up.

* The bad - they're knocking Barbara Gordon back to Batgirl - no more Oracle, no more wheelchair and, while the Birds of Prey still exist, chances are good she's not in charge**. In fact, all the news coming out of Gotham (except maybe Batwoman) sounds messed up - musefool talks about it here better than I could.

** I'm holding out hope for a Babs who's PwD and Batgirl and secretly Oracle and in charge of All The Things, but I don't think DC likes happiness that much.

* Janelle Monae was amazing last night. SO AMAZING. And Bruno Mars is adorable.

* NPR's Monkey See blog has rundowns of the new shows airing in the fall: ABC, FOX, NBC Dramas, and NBC Comedies. CBS and the CW haven't put theirs up yet.

Awake (NBC), Grimm (NBC), Alcatraz (FOX), and Terra Nova (FOX) all have interesting premises (not that I'm predictable in my SFF love or anything) but the only one I have any hope for is Alcatraz (even though the premise is pretty silly) - Fringe has convinced me Abrams doesn't always disappoint.

...I'll probably try the Charlie's Angels (ABC) reboot, too. And Scandal (ABC).

* The Disappearing Face of New York - beautiful old store signs

* Silent Choices, a film that 'explores not only black women’s personal and political struggles around reproductive freedom, but also the complexities of abortion too often ignored by the mainstream media', is streaming free for today only. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but it looks good.

* This has been making the rounds, which makes sense because it's fantastic - Rosanne Barr on the Lack of Change in the TV Industry

* Super Obvious Secrets That I Wish They’d Teach In Art School. I need to print this out and put it by my desk. Maybe tattoo 'Draw Every Day' somewhere.

* Fannish fests about ladies: thelittlebang is open for prompts, the fandom poll for femslash11 is also open, and the Female Character Trope Fest is indefinitely open for fanworks.

* The OTW is looking for anime/manga/manhua/manwha fans to help organize the Fanlore wiki

* scifi_fest is still taking prompts (and will until the 29th)! The turn out's been great so far (so much better than I was expecting!) and the existing prompts are hella fun, you should come join us :D

* ProPublica has a bunch of articles up about bin Laden, including Your Weekend Wrap-up of the Doubts, Debates, and New Details of the Bin Laden Raid, Role of Torture in Finding Bin Laden: What We Actually Know, Revisiting the Very First, Very Wrong Reports on Bin Laden’s Death, and the Bin Laden Reading Guide: How to Cut Through the Coverage. Al Jazeera also has a comprehensive Spotlight up.

* cleolinda and Boing Boing both have post about tornado damage in the USian southeast and what you can do to help.

* Feminism FOR REAL explores what has led us to the existence of “feminism”, who gets to decide what it is, and why. With stories that make the walls of academia come tumbling down, it deals head-on with the conflicts of what feminism means in theory as opposed to real life, the frustrations of trying to relate to definitions of feminism that never fit no matter how much you try to change yourself to fit them, and the anger of changing a system while being in the system yourself. I can't wait until I've got the spare cash to buy it.

There's been some fail regarding it in the mainstream Feminist blogosphere, particularly at Feministe; Jessica Yee guest blogs about it on Racialicious.

* On Colorlines: Teen Moms Look for Support, But Find Only Shame.

* gyzym has a great essay up on bisexuality and the damaging myths surrounding it.

* Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!!! NPR's Monkey See has a guide for the perplexed.

* If there's one thing Fringe has taught me (aside from 'SCIENCE, it's magic'), it's that Astrid Farnsworth is awesome.

* Never meet your (white, male, writer) heroes. Dammit, Moffat.

All the Community squee has me making pitiful want noises. I have got to catch up this weekend.

I hate Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise. Loathe it. It’s not really rational - there are plenty of movies that fail worse than it does (although it fails a *lot*) - but it hits some kind of magic nerd!rage + sexism!rage + racism!rage combo that shorts out my logic circuits.

...that's a terrible opener, but I figure everyone should know my biases up front. Anyway, I haven't seen a collection of the franchise's various problems and I want something to link people to later (as an alternative to ranting at them), so I'm putting this here. Let me know if I've missed anything!

NOTE: I am not trying to say that you shouldn’t like the Batmovies - there’s plenty to like! Heath Ledger was a fucking awesome Joker, Bruce/Jim is a fun 'ship and the explosions were all very satisfactory! - or that being excited for the new one makes you a bad person. My button issues are not your button issues, etc.

Moving on, the issues include:

* The whitewashing of Ra's Al Ghul (This one’s tricky, given how badly Nolan would have handled an Arabic Ra's Al Ghul + how much the ‘muslim terrorist’ trope sucks in general).

* The fridging of Rachel Dawes.

'I've been informed in the comments that Rachel Dawes was NOT in the comics and that her movie character was not based on any recognizable pre-existing Batman character. So Nolan created a woman and introduced her into the Batman universe solely for the purpose of killing her off. Not only does her death provide angst for Bruce Wayne, it turns Harvey Dent evil and Jim Gordon borderline-suicidal. Wow, screw fridging, that's like a deep freeze!'

* The erasure of Barbara Gordon

Instead, Barbara was shunted off to the side in favor of a son, because Nolan had no faith in the demonstrably popular and meaningful relationship Barbara Gordon has with her father. You see, little girls aren't important, and their fathers don't love them. And little girls don't grow up to be heroes.

* The erasure of Renee Montoya

( They've already had their Latina detective, what if people got confused? )

Nolan's fine with making up police roles for his favorite white dude actors to play (and I like JGL too), but god forbid we include the canon kickass queer latina cop.

* The whitewashing of Bane (and possibly Selina)

As far as I can figure, the film will either erase Bane's Latino+Caribbean heritage or have Tom Hardy pretend to be someone with that heritage. I can't decide which option is worse.

~*~

It looks like Batman's getting a reboot* after The Dark Knight Rises, though, so at least this'll be the end of it.

Except Nolan will be producing the reboot.

* Oh, Hollywood. I think I'm finally ready to quit you.

Three links:

* And The Pony You Rode In On by sanguinity. There's a Settler Ponies vs. Buffalo episode in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's as terrible as you'd expect. Dammit.

* suckerpunked by neomeruru. I've seen conflicting reports about this movie from sources I usually trust (For example: halcyonjazz has a very negative review and The Hathor Legacy has a very positive one) which, frankly, weirded me out. The movie looks incredibly, obviously fail-y in the trailers, you know? Also, it's directed by Zack Snyder.

neomeruru's review confirms a lot of what I was afraid of. No mention of ableism though, which I understand is also a big fail point.

* George Takei is being awesomely blunt about the Akira whitewashing on his twitter. Which makes sense, seeing as George Takei is an awesome dude.

And now, music. Happy Friday, everyone!





(Yes, I'm posting it again.)

First off, a question: Do y'all think there'd be any interest in a Sci-fi fic fest? One open to any fandom, sci-fi or not, as long as the story explored sci-fi elements.

There is some cool fannish stuff this week:

*Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V mangas have been licensed for rerelease (or just plain release, in Sailor V's case) in the US! EEEEEEEEEEEE! We get the shiny anniversary editions and new translations and everything, it's a goddamn miracle. If you're only familiar with the US dub of the Sailor Moon anime, check out nevermore999's essay on why the manga is awesome.

* Showtime's picked up the script for a TV adaption of Chew! I don't know if I'd be able to watch it - I have a hard time just reading the comic - but I'm excited anyway.

* To go along with the maybe-someday Good Omens TV show, there's apparently a series about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch in the works. CSI/Cop show style which, while potentially disastrous, is one of the coolest/geekiest TV show ideas ever.

And some not-cool fannish news: “AKIRA” adaptation courts white actors. And while we're at it: The Hunger Games: Racially Ambiguous? Perhaps Not. Fuck you, Hollywood.

Also:

* keeperofqkeys has some links re: the ongoing reactor situation at Fukushima. Zie says they're 'free of media bias, though somewhat heavy in technical jargon', which seems accurate.

* How people really behave during disasters

* The Republican Attack on Women’s Health Goes Global

* Backgrounder: Behind the Battle Over Hidden Debit Card Fees. Dry title but interesting reading. I remember my bank encouraging me to not use my pin # because it wasn't 'safe' and thinking it was about as stupid as the encouraging overdraft thing, now I know the reasoning. Hint: it wasn't to protect users.

* When “Big Pharma” Makes It Tough to be a Skeptic

* How to Do Space Science at Home: Q&A With Space Geek Ariel Waldman

* politics. Seriously, everybody should be following this comm (does this count as a Follow Friday post? We'll say yes.)