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Below are 20 journal entries, after skipping by the 20 most recent ones recorded in
cardigrl's InsaneJournal:
| Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | |||
| 9:47 am | And following up on yesterday's post... Eric Holder, our Attorney General, was interviewed by ABC news the other day. He spoke about race relations in America, once again strictly in terms of blacks and whites. Note this is the head of the US Justice Department. As such, he is the one who is in charge of those feds who refuse to investigate and effectively prosecute violent crimes against Native American women. Note also that he instead talked about Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s being asked for ID and the fact that Holder had his car searched when he was in college years ago. Now, it's not that I think profiling does not happen, as I noted in an earlier post. It's that people like Holder are guilty of the most heinous racism by failing to acknowledge even the existence of the people they are charged by law to protect, all the while those people are physically brutalized. If he wants this country to have an honest discussion about race, as he claims, why is he not talking about that? Within the past few months, I had a woman talk to me about her job as a nurse in a local hospital and her concerns. She told me about a few young women who have had the courage to go to the hospital after being raped. If you don't know, men will cut out the back of the girl's jeans after they rape her, so that if she goes to the hospital she is further shamed by having everyone near and in the hospital know just what happened. I do know of a case in which a few male relatives, fed up with it all, beat up their relative's rapist. You will be happy to know, I'm sure, that the feds DID pull out all the stops to prosecute those men, including arranging to quash a drug-dealing warrant out against the rapist (and which was the impetus for his hiding out on the rez to start with). so that he could testify at the men's trial without being worried about being arrested himself. But Eric Holder is more concerned about a rich Harvard professor. Where's the hope and change? Obviously, it's not for women. | ||
| Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | |||
| 9:52 am | News follies... or why focus on the substantive stuff when we can pointlessly insult each other. Let's start with this piece in Media Matters, on how Sean Hannity, the clueless right-wing "news" host took out of context old comments from Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s 1994 interview on C-SPAN's Booknotes. He did so in an attempt to make Gates out to be a radical racist. Why do I say this is pointless? First, Hannity is an idiot, the people who would believe his shtick already think that, and nobody else is going to fall for it. Second, because the rest of us should be spending our time on things that matter, rather than muttering together that Hannity is a racist who is dishonest, a clueless idiot, or both. Where's the news in that? Then we have Maxine Waters' blaming the fact that they have not yet passed health care reform on Rahm Emanuel . How does that work, you ask? Well, if he had not done such a good job getting moderate Democrats to run for Congress so that they regained their majority, all the liberals would have already voted for it. Apparently, she does not get it that liberal Democrats would not have won in all those districts. ~sigh~ As to the Dems who are in Congress, what's with them? Harry Reid said he wasn't going to say whether he favored a public plan for health care. Because, you know, it's not like he's in a leadership position or anything. Or perhaps the Democratic Caucus has a different definition of leadership? As in, never commit to anything so you can blame everybody else if it goes south? And on the economic front... Does anyone know if there's any truth in the AP's claim that the jobs created by the stimulus bill (remember, the one that cost trillions?) lasted an average of 35 hours each, after which the people are again unemployed? And on the racism front.... Yes, I know this will annoy some people, but if we want to talk about racism, can we stop talking about whether Gates got offended for being asked for ID and talk about things like the way the federal government denies equal protection to millions of Native women by stripping tribes and states of any ability to effectively prosecute assaults against them and then refusing to do it themselves? See this brief for a summary of how that has occurred. Sorry, but I am getting really tired of people talking about race in America as a black/white issue, when it is much broader than that. And I'm sick and tired of the way that I (and the state-side LEOs I work with) would dearly love to go after some of these rapists and assailants, but have to stand by and watch the feds ignore it. I actually had a case where I pushed the US Attorney's office to go after a rapist, and the AUSA finally sneered that if the rapist's latest victim wanted to drive to his office (a 160 mile round trip), he'd round somebody up to talk to her. Because, you know, it was too much to ask FBI Agents to drive to the rez to investigate a crime against a woman after they pushed through the laws that said nobody else could do it. | ||
| Friday, July 24th, 2009 | |||
| 9:17 pm | Another Nu!Trek Rec This time for Miscommunication by salr323 (PG; Spock/Uhura). Pride and Prejudice meets the Star Trek universe when Spock and Uhura each form an initial dislike for the other when they meet at the Star Fleet Academy. Filled with missed cues, misunderstandings, and extremely intelligent, but oh-so-young, adults who have not yet grown into their potential and learned to appreciate cultural differences. Well done and with a happy ending. Complete (the last chapter posted yesterday). | ||
| Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 | |||
| 7:30 pm | Racial profiling and talking without the facts First, anyone who claims that police don't do racial profiling is dreaming. And yes, believe it or not, I have seen that stated recently. Second, one of the things I learned very, very quickly when I became involved in the criminal justice system was to be leery of accepting at face value any one side of events, no matter how much it fits with my personal beliefs. Some years ago, a newspaper with wide circulation in my state published an "investigative report" on racial discrimination by the police. I have never questioned (and have in fact argued in support of the argument) that the court system has a significant disparate impact on people of different races. In fact, there is an bias built in specifically based on a person's race by law in some instances. But the example given in that newspaper as proof of racial bias....was that a Native American man was driving down the street and was stopped, hassled and arrested despite having no moving violations. Sounds damning, no? Only thing is....I knew the people involved. What I heard was this: The man arrested had appeared in court the day before the incident on a DWI charge, plead guilty, and had his driver's license revoked by the judge on the DWI. And the cop who arrested him for driving the next day? Just happened to have been in the courtroom when the judge revoked the man's license. And you know what? Given the people and the size of the community involved, that's entirely believable. I also heard that the newspaper never bothered to contact the cops or the clerk of court to inquire about the facts. The point of this is that any lawyer -- including our illustrious president -- should know that you need to hear more than one side before making public statements regarding an arrest. And so, before taking at face value the statements from Obama or anyone else about complaints regarding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I invite you to look at the police report. Having read many reports over the years, i suspect it's a bit sanitized. But it's interesting reading. And people might also want to consider that police, upon receiving an eyewitness report of a burglary in progress and if they are going to do a thorough and professional job, will investigate who else is in the home. They will also attempt to speak to the homeowner outside the home to verify that there's not somebody with a gun hanging out behind him after having told him to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the cop. Because....you know...people of color are often crime victims, and cops have a duty to protect and serve people, including people who are rude to them. Just food for thought. | ||
| Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | |||
| 2:25 pm | Fic Recs Two Nu!Trek story recs, the first of which is heartily recommended for all fandom. Reading Against/Reading Wth: Mastering the Oppositional Discourse in Textual Healing by emeraldwoman is a wonderful parody of literary criticism. If you haven't seen this recced anywhere else yet, you will. Caution for explicit language and description of homosexual intercourse / threesome. A small sample: Uhura stretched. "Hmm. Tell you what, Spock. Let's see if we can create an Outsider narrative unbounded by paradigmatic expectations." "Affirmative," Spock said, and started taking off his jacket. The second one, on spock_uhura, You Better Run Girl! by recumbentgoat. From the author's header: Character/Pairing: McCoy, Spock/Uhura, Kirk, some redshirts Rating: PG? For swearing right now. Though there's sure to be sexins and violence later on. Summary: A landing party beams down to a planet that hasn’t been visited in over 20 years. There are mysterious lifeform readings and an outpost once established there has been long abandoned under suspicious circumstances. All is proceeding fairly normally until Spock goes missing. It's got action, plot and suspense. Not to give too much away (I hope!), but Snupineers might enjoy part of the premise. Caution for WIP. | ||
| Friday, July 17th, 2009 | |||
| 11:24 pm | Harry Corgwyn! Check out this link to an animated short: Harry Corgwyn and a Day at Dogwarts. It's adorable. | ||
| Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | |||
| 10:37 am | So Angry I Could Spit As the saying goes. I'm just flummoxed that, just after the warnings debate (once again, according to many) raged again, I visited the Spock/Uhura LJ Comm, happily clicked on a link to a story which, according to the header, merited no warnings, and was thrown straight into ... A RAPE STORY. With brutality and terror "lovingly" described. Spit. | ||
| Friday, June 19th, 2009 | |||
| 8:53 pm | I took my dad to see Star Trek the other day. It was especially enjoyable because we haven't gone to a movie together for years. For all the complaints about black holes/science problems, I figured we should just roll with it. I mean, it's Star Trek, not a scientific treatise. ;-) And overall, I thought it very enjoyable, although there were a few things that grated a bit. As some have already commented, the bit with offering the villian a last-minute rescue was a bit much. And it just seemed so....non-TOS in a way. And while this was completely true to TOS, it was slightly annoying that the only women we saw were: dried-up aliens; mini-skirted tokens under 25; or Spock's mother. ~sigh~ But the really scary thing for me was that the next day, I was talking to someone about it and mentioned it was kind of fun to see Snape beat up Kirk on the bridge. It wasn't until they gave me a very strange look that I realized I had not said Spock. That Snape really gets around, you know? Whoops. ;-) | ||
| Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | |||
| 12:08 pm | This really is scary... Ran across this is catching up on my podcasts. Check out Using Psychology to Save You on NPR. I knew I was going to have questions about it when it starts talking about how the Obama Administration wants "to remake the relationship between the government and its citizens." Note that the focus and important actor in that sentence is the government, not individuals. It then takes some time establishing that humans are not entirely rational in their choices, not exactly earth-shaking information. But their conclusion is. They claim that... "Merely accepting the fact that people do not necessarily make the best decisions for themselves is politically very explosive. The moment that you admit that, you have to start protecting people," Kahneman says. Of course, that's based on the false dichotomy promoted in this story, namely: either you accept as accurate economic models that presume people are hyper-rational beings who always act only in their own self-interest, or you "have to start protecting people" from themselves and their ability to think. The concept of free-will and the whole ideal of people being free to make their own choices and, by extension, their own mistakes, is apparently foreign to this crowd. You know, the basic justification for government in the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Federalist Papers, Leviathan, and any number of essential political writings, is that it is needed to protect people from getting beat up by other people and to provide for basic infrastructure needed for people to live and prosper. It is not there to "save" people from themselves. That road leads....well, ever read The Origins of Totalitarianism, Escape from Freedom, or any other studies on just what leads to totalitarian or facist governments? And as to the concept that Obama and his bureaucrats are qualified to override the free will of millions of Americans? Well, maybe the bizarre rantings on MSNBC about Obama being above God really are what they think. | ||
| Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | |||
| 5:54 pm | A Question for the Brits... I was catching up on Daily Mayo podcasts the other day, and the guest was a allergist talking about treatment for hay fever and other allergy problems. If I understood him correctly, he said there were something like 20 allergists in Britain available through the NHS, and that only half of them were pediatric allergists. Can that really be correct?? Do any of you have allergies? Do you have any problems getting treatment? It just boggles the mind, but then, that's pretty much what the doctor was saying....that it's woefully lacking compared to other countries. I realize that every professional thinks their specialty is undervalued, but still... | ||
| 2:26 pm | On David Letterman and ignorance of the law Apparently, I'm getting old, because sometime in the past few years, I stopped finding David Letterman all that funny. Time was, I stayed up late to watch his show, after blowing off the Tonight Show. Yes, I'm old enough to remember when Letterman had the late, late show. His jokes have become increasingly lame, instead of edgy and funny as they used to be. But this post isn't (really) about his jokes. It's about how people proudly display their ignorance of the law, and about the number of people who see nothing wrong (apparently) with a middle-aged man impregnating a 14-year old girl. I'm taken aback, and more than a little annoyed, at the ignorance displayed by online commentators posting about the latest kerfuffle over Letterman's joke about Sarah Palin's 14-year old daughter getting pregnant by a baseball player during the game. I had naively hoped that the people who found that funny or, God forbid, just peachy, were limited to teeny-boppers posting bad stories on fanfiction.net. Obviously not, given the number of comments I've read on the web that it's no big deal. So, a little public service announcement: FOURTEEN YEARS OLD IS UNDER THE AGE OF CONSENT. Having sex with a 14-year old is rape in many (if not all) of the states in the United States. No, there is no such thing as consensual sex with a 14-year old. It's a felony, and men do go to prison for it. Yes, I know Letterman is now claiming he was joking about Bristol Palin rather than her younger sister. It's more of a sad commentary on the pathetic state of comedy today that anyone would think that was a good joke for network television. But four points on that: first, when he was told that the 14-year old was the girl at the baseball game, he should have just said he was sorry and been done with it. Any rational person watching his response cannot possibly say he sincerely apologized. Second, why in the world did he think it was appropriate to joke about any politician's child? Third, WHY did he have to talk about Palin? Haven't we had to hear enough already about Sarah Palin and her family? Fourth, WHY can't she just go away? | ||
| Friday, May 8th, 2009 | |||
| 11:57 pm | 15 book meme Borrowed from ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} the_bitter_word15 Impressive Books in 15 Minutes Meme "This can be a quick one. Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes." Well, if we're not taking too long to think. Others probably won't think they're all that impressive, but... Lord Grizzly, by Fredrick Manfred. And some people think <i>Snape</i> was bitter. Based on a true story and boy, did they make them tough back then. Pride and Prejudice. Need I say more? Land of the Burnt Thigh. A memoir. Some vivid memories in that book. Haven't read it in years, and don't know how it would hold up now. Giants in the Earth, by Ole Rolvaag. One of the most underestimated classics. The trilogy is all good, but this one really packs a punch. The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. Wickedly funny. The Gospel According to Peanuts, by Robert L. Short. Even funnier. Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. DIdn't every US lawyer born after 1950 read this book growing up? The Pride of Chanur, by CJ Cherryh. Laugh all you want, but how can you not love a space opera where the protagonists are all female? The Lord of the Rings. Can't possibly trim that down to one of the three (although it would probably have to be The Return of the King if I HAD to pick just one). First read as an 11-year-old. I've lost track of how many times I've reread it since. The Code of the Woosters, by PG Wodehouse. Yes, it seems bizarre for me to love Wodehouse so much, but nothing can make me giggle more. ;-) Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson. My brother gave it to me for Christmas when I was a kid, and it started me on a life-long love affair with scifi. What Mrs. McGuillicudy Saw, by Agatha Christie. I think the English title was 4:50 from Paddington. Started yet another life-long love affair, this with detective stories. 1984, by Goerge Orwell. | ||
| Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 | |||
| 1:01 pm | Defend to the death your right to say it? Apparently not in England. Apparently British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has banned 16 people from entering the UK, including one radio talk show guy from the US. She said, "Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded. . . ." Apparently, that includes running at the mouth, because it "is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country . . ." Isn't this the same politician who charged her government for porn so her husband could be entertained? Did that not cause any tension to anyone? Didn't it cause any "inter-community tension" when people suggested people in Britain be allowed to follow Sharia law and not allow women human rights? Just wondering. ;-) | ||
| Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 | |||
| 9:28 pm | The word quiz going around Swiped from pumagrrl. Although, as I told her, I so fail at these things. I went to take the quiz and when I got to question 2 (If you had lived in 17th century Europe, you would have been:), my initial reaction was: a poor downtrodden servant who dies young of consumption. Surprisingly (or not), that was not one of the options. ;-) Perhaps unsurprisingly, my result was:
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| Sunday, April 5th, 2009 | |||
| 9:20 am | Enough! Redux Since it's been so long since I've posted anything about Harry Potter... | ||
| Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 | |||
| 7:56 pm | Spring Madness Interstate is closed. There's a 3 foot snow drift in the yard. We just got power back after being out since last night. It was starting to get a bit chilly in the house. Good insulation and doors can only do so much against 50 mph winds; I could see the snow blowing in through the cracks around the door until I duct taped it shut. ;-) You gotta love spring, right? Because we know the snow will be gone in a week. | ||
| Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 | |||
| 1:10 pm | Posting madness... I don't know how many people have read this article about an interview with Alan Rickman. It was primarily about Bottle Shock, the new release, but he made a few comments about the difference in language usage between Brits and Americans. Among them: It struck me in particular, because of past kerfuffles in which some Brits and Europeans have complained about reviews left by American readers. Makes me wonder how many times I've genuinely complimented someone (in my eyes), while they've felt attacked. I know of one in particular, but to the others, I apologize. | ||
| 1:00 pm | Witchcraft, Abductions and Africa There was great consternation at Portus last year when people were accosted and harassed by missionaries. The actions of those missionaries was completely unacceptable. Personally, I did not have much trouble, and did have one interesting conversation with a man who had completely misunderstood what we were doing there and was quite friendly by the end of the discussion. I also remember, however, hearing quite a few snerks, giggles, and condescending comments about a young woman who appeared afraid of the convention-goers. And so, I point out this article, from the BBC, about an Amnesty International report: Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers have been abducted by "witch doctors" to secret detention centres and forced to drink potions, a human rights group says. Amnesty International said some forced to drink the concoctions developed kidney problems, and two had died. The article is longer than that, of course, but it is interesting. And perhaps we should keep things like this in mind in the future before ridiculing others. After all, neither the BBC nor Amnesty International are known as right-wing religious fundamentalist institutions. ;-) | ||
| 12:45 pm | AIG and the Dems So Obama and Democrat Christopher Dodd are both pounding podiums complaining about AIG. But consider this snippet about their activities this year from an AP story on yahoo.com:
So we had a BI-PARTISAN provision to stop just this kind of looting of the federal coffers, stopped by Democratic Senator Chris Dodd and approved by Obama. As I understand it, now the Democrats in Congress are complaining that they didn't know that had been changed, because they did not have time to read the bill before voting on it? Just who was it insisted on that, and called the Republicans obstructionist for complaining they wanted to read the bill before voting, huh??? Calling Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama, anyone? Add to that, an earlier story verified that AIG included disclosure of all the arrangements for these bonuses in documents they provided to the New York Fed, back when Geithner was supposedly in charge there. I say supposedly, because it's starting to appear that the guy couldn't find his way out of a paper bag even if armed with a map, candles and matches. Do you think they will now figure out it's time to stop blaming everyone else for their screw-ups? | ||
| Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | |||
| 1:00 pm | Grass Fed I recently ran across a good website, Eat Wild, which has lists of farmers and local producers who sell organic and/or natural food. It's a good resource for people wanting to support responsible and practical environmental measures, as well as improving their diets. It promotes many of the responsible measures that we and most of the neighbors used back when we owned our ranch. Chickens and pigs were free range and all our cattle (and sheep, wrt neighbors) were raised on grass in broad pastures. It was not until I moved East and had to buy meat in the grocery store that I realized how bad it could be. :-( As a result, I have always tried to support local farmers and ranchers and encouraged others to do so when I could. Recently, however, I discovered that even the local ethics do not always hold up to financial pressures. The last quarter of beef I got from the local locker is hideously bad. I suspect they used hormones, and am certain that it was fed way too much corn way too early. The meat is not just fatty; it's greasy to the point that it's difficult to describe just how disgusting it is. And the reason I suspect they use hormones? Shortly after starting to eat it, I began to have serious acne and weight gain significant enough that it cannot be explained by my volume of food consumption and winter lack of exercise. So I talked with another friend of a friend, who recently put up a website offering their own grass-fed beef. Their website led me to eatwild. I encourage those of you interested in the environment and how your food is produced to visit it. | ||
