wSep 26, 2009


Really?

I just....cannot even believe the comments I'm interacting with in this thread any more. For example!

If you don't understand the logic behind the man being (at least titular) head of the household, you don't understand men. A man has to be responsible for something or he will not be responsible at all.

Well shit, I guess I'll have to turn in my Understands Men card! My poor boyfriend! I must be stunting his growth as a man by being in a relationship in which I fully expect to have input, and my thoughts respected, and to NOT BE CONTROLLED, or to not expect him to be "responsible for me," lest I punch him in the neck and say, "Fuck you, bye!"

Also, WTF is up with people posting things ON THE INTERNET, and then getting upset when people respond to their thoughts. I think that I stopped expecting choruses of, "Oh, mystickeeper, you're so right!" when I turned 14. It's The Internet, buddy. You should be so lucky that the meanest person you have to deal with is ME.


Commiseration is cool, but if you'd like to respond to the thoughts of Father Benjamin, please post the thoughts in his blog.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 8:48 AM
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wSep 6, 2009


Being political while slightly inebriated: always the right choice

Just e-mailed the man mentioned in this article with a subject heading, "Your Poor Decision."

My favorite parts of my e-mail to him include:

The text of the speech is being released on Monday (one day before it is aired), so your ultimatum of "It would be irresponsible of any teacher to introduce to her/his students material that the teacher has not screened, evaluated, found to be educationally sound" is erroneous.

I am sick and tired of people like you using the Church as a platform on which you can make your political statements, and which you use as an instrument to make other people conform to your own political beliefs (in this case, by using your power as a superintendent to censor information that is being offered to children in public schools).

and

As a superintendent, I would certainly hope that you have better things to do - as both a Catholic and as an educator - than come up with useless rules. The showing is not mandatory - schools are supposed to decide for themselves whether or not to show the address. You have taken that power away from individual schools needlessly.

I would soften my reproach if I could think of a single reason for you to ban the showing of the President's speech to students, but the truth is that no such reason exists. The only explanation is that you are personally politically opposed to President Obama, and you are abusing your position to manipulate the children who happen to be in your charge by denying them information to which they have a right.


I AM SO SICK OF THIS POLITICAL BULLSHIT IN MY CHURCH. Go feed the hungry! Help poor people! Stop sitting on your asses in offices figuring out ways to manipulate your herd of sheep, and instead learn how to tend to them. What a pathetic and useless waste of precious time.

But hey, considering the fact that our bishop made everyone watch his pre-recorded message on abortion, marriage, and stem-cell research IN AN ELECTION YEAR, and oh yeah, fired a woman because of her graduate thesis, I can't say that I'm surprised that this happened.

Bishop Morlino also serves on the board for School of the Americas. Classy.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 12:52 AM
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wJun 9, 2009


This post might be "too complex and nuanced for a typical web audience."

The last couple of days have been filled with anger, for me.

One involves a situation beyond my control, but leaves me feeling vulnerable and cheated by a faceless bureaucracy. Of course it will get sorted out for my personal situation, but it only reinforces my adamant belief that health care should be a right for every single person, and not a classist privilege accessible only to those who manage to find a full-time job or can afford to pay for their own health care out of pocket. What does it say about our society, if you can only gain access to medicine and technology that will make/keep you healthy if you have the money to pay for it? Isn't it bad enough for the unemployed or under-employed that they make very little money? Must we punish them further, by telling them that they don't deserve to be healthy? That, in some cases, they deserve to die?

And people truly argue about this? Fail.

I've also been thinking a lot about people in positions of power.

If you are in a position of power, and you see that the people over whom you exert power - the sheep of your flock, if you will - are not doing what they're supposed to be doing, which of the following do you think is the proper response to make your flock more functional?

A) Blame them for not knowing better (and be sure to blame other people for not teaching them better, willfully ignoring your own position of power at the moment).

B) Mock them while surrounding yourself with people who agree with you.

C) Ostracize them by making them feel ashamed or guilty, so as not to taint your tiny Type A flock of "true sheep."

D) Complain about them and how they are the reason that the group is failing as a whole. Make sure to not actually speak to them, tell them what you think what went wrong, or perform any action items to rectify what went wrong.

E) Point out to them what went wrong, and ask them what you can do with your position of power to ensure that it does not happen again.


On a lighter note, a friend of mine recently told me that she thought my Internet alias was "My Stick Eeper." I've had this alias for 8 years, and I never thought about it that way. It's supposed to be "Mystic Keeper," by the way; huzzah for aliases created at age 14.

If people want to start calling me "The Stick," though, I am okay with that.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 8:52 PM
2 comments



wMay 18, 2009


The Cancellation of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Of course I'm sad.

Mostly, I'm pissed.

When Terminator: Salvation opens (THIS THURSDAY), I want it to be a box office smash, and I want the FOX executives to cry themselves to sleep, and have nightmares about themselves living in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 9:54 PM
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wMar 5, 2009


Yeah, that just happened.

Elizabeth Bear speaks out!

MY FAVORITE PART is how she tells people they're being mean but uses no specific names. How do we know who's actually being "mean"?!

I JEST.

MY FAVORITE PART is where she arbitrarily declares a ceasefire, complete with a time and date so she can get mad at us when we ignore it.

I JEST!

FOR REAL MY FAVORITE PART? IS THE PART WHERE SHE TAKES BACK SAYING AVALON'S WILLOW'S CRITIQUE OF HER BOOK IS VALID, AND SAYS SHE ONLY TREATED IT AS SUCH TO HAVE A PIOUS EXAMPLE OF HOW TO TREAT THOSE SILLY KIDS OF COLOR.

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 7:54 AM
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wJan 9, 2009


That middle section turned out longer than I expected....

There is supposed to be steady snowfall throughout the day, and there's already a healthy coating on the streets and sidewalks.

My throat was mildly sore yesterday, but this morning I woke up because it was so painful to swallow. I've brought cayenne pepper, ginger powder, and honey to work, and plan to mix them all with some orange spiced tea and get rid of it! We'll see how that goes.


My LJ friend meganbmoore has posted an appalling link to a post made by a dude named Josh Tyler, who thinks that chicks only like Julia Roberts movies. Her post is here. Of note:
Even Wonder Womanwas only a success because men supported her. The old Wonder Woman television show was a hit because men tuned in. Men tuned in because Wonder Woman was hot and watching her rope bad guys with her golden lasso fulfilled some sort of hot chick, dominatrix fetish fantasy. Wonder Woman may be a girl, but her audience was never really comprised of women. Sure women may tune in from time to time, just as women go see movies like Spider-Man and The Dark Knight. But they are not and never will be the primary audience for those films. Catching bad guys is not a common female fantasy. Ask most women which movies they’re most looking forward to in 2009 and odds are that it’ll be something starring Julia Roberts. Ask men what they’re most looking forward to, and I guarantee Julia’s name will not be uttered.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Men and women simply have different interests. Men are interested in action movies with heroes blowing things up and saving the girl. Men are interested in imagining themselves as ass-kicking heroes. Women are interested in movies about relationships and romance and love. Women are interested in imagining themselves finding the right guy and dancing till dawn. Little boys play with guns, little girls play with dolls. Neither version of play is superior to the other, it’s just different. Nobody is out there trying to force men to get interested in movies about romantic weekends in Paris, so why are we so dead set on forcing women to get interested in movies about beating people up? There’s something unintentionally sexist about it, it’s as if we’re saying women’s interests are somehow inherently inferior, and to be validated they must instead find ways to be more like men.

WHAT THE FUCK. There is so much that is wrong with his post. Firstly, WTF about gendered childhoods?! I'm pretty sure that I did my best to let boys let me play football at recess when I was 8. I played with GI Joes and I loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I also learned how to cross-stitch and made elaborate rooms for my American Girl dolls, going so far as to make them their own food by molding and baking clay. And then I would run into the backyard and make my own knives by scraping sticks against concrete. According to this guy, I must be some freak of nature with no gender! NOT TO MENTION MY MEDIA TASTES, and I think any readers of this blog know that I'm a huge fan of cinematic and/or animated violence.

You know what, though? In a way, he's right. I do dislike superhero comics about men (I have not read Wonder Women). I hate how they're mysognistic, and I hate how women exist only as a way to give the male protagonist angst (Spider-Man's Mary Jane), and someone to save. I hate how people's bodies are drawn in superhero comics, both me and women: Muscles are grossly exaggerated in men, while women have impossibly tiny waists with enormous breasts. I tire easily with superheroes who catch the same bad guys all the time, and superhero writers who try and stir up drama by dropping in another female character for a few issues, only to kill her off. I'd vastly prefer to read Strangers in Paradise, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, DMZ, Runaways, or hey - how about Japanese manga with women kicking ass? Claymore, Fullmetal Alchemist, Sailor Moon, Chun Hyang, etc. How does he think that Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was so popular? Anyone who gives any consideration to their media consumption knows that a good story is one with believable emotions and characters we like watching. Do I like watching women getting tied up and whining until they get saved? No! Is that solely because I'm a woman? I don't think so. I certainly believe that men exist in the world who also tire of women being used as a plot device instead of characters.

And for the record, I am highly interested in imagining myself as an ass-kicking, gun-shooting, sword-fighting, ninja-star-throwing bad-ass. Imaginging myself twirling forever in the clouds the arms of a dude (even my boyfriend) sounds pretty damn boring.

Also, I know sometimes you guys get confused about original authors when I link to other places....meganbmoore is not the jerk....she is posting ABOUT the jerk. :)

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scribbled mystickeeper at 6:42 AM
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wDec 12, 2008


Yes, this is how I read so much manga

A Key!
HT = home town
CT = current town
So, this morning I realize two things: 1) I'm going to be in HT a week from today, and 2) I get to be on the computer all day at work. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?! It means that I planned on gleefully spending all day compiling a heinous number of holds at the HT library on volumes of manga which they have but my CT library does not.

I WILL READ ALL OF THE MANGAS....*CACKLE*

But then I encountered woe!

On the HT library's website (which uses the same interface as CT's!), it treats manga series as one book. So when I try to put, say, 14 volumes of Claymore on hold, only "Claymore" shows up on my list of holds request.

So I call the HT library (praying to God that I don't get the same librarian who had to tell me my pin number) and ask what's up.
"Oh, right! Unfortunately on our website, you can't request specific volumes; you have to call or come in, and have a librarian do it for you."

WHAT. What a terrible system! I mean, my God, I am on CT's library website multiple times every day, seeing when the next volume of High School Debut will be available for pick-up, or how many episodes of D.Gray-Man and Fullmetal Alchemist I can get! If CT made me call or come in, they would get so sick of me that they would probably change the interface JUST FOR ME.

I got a pile of Claymore, Gin Tama, One Piece, and Lovely Complex.


BUT YOU GUYS, WHAT IF I THINK OF MOAR?! [For example: Damn it, I just realized I forgot about W Juliet!]

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scribbled mystickeeper at 9:44 AM
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wDec 10, 2008


Toph and Mai had better be in this damn movie.

WHAT.


Dear Hollywood,
People of color like getting jobs, too. I AM SO SICK OF THIS SHIT.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 1:06 PM
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wOct 3, 2008


Clearing out my tabs

The end of the fifth episode of Veronica Mars is when I officially fell in love with the show. I didn't see it coming at all, and it was just....wow.

I just finished episode 9, and am still loving things.



Tagged by Bethany.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. Tag five other people to do the same.

But howsomever thou pursues this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.

Ham. O all you host of heaven!


Tagging people?! Does it work? We'll see. I tag [LiveJournal people]. And if you already did the meme and I didn't remember, well....I just suck at life.


My package from Johanna arrived. A DVD of Millennium Actress, a high-quality anime movie! Buying stuff from Johanna is awesome because she sticks other goodies in the packaging. When I bought Escaflowne, there was an amazing CLAMP notebook, with pictures of Kamui, Fuma, Sakura, and Syaoran. There is more Sakura in this one, along with a cute paper with illustrations from the series Full Moon. Whee! I have some Satoshi Kon-spreading to do....Apparently, The Boyfriend has never seen Tokyo Godfathers or Millennium Actress! This is a travesty that must be corrected.


In the running for "most offensive headline award," one article about the recent suckage on Wall Street: "For Greenwich, 'This is our Katrina'"


I apparently lost the software disc for my mp3 player, which is unfortunate, as the program was erased from my computer when I reloaded Windows (twice). Without the software, the player won't even charge, let alone allow me to arrange and upload music to the device. I thought I found the place to get the software here, but every link I try on that page tells me something about needing a 64-bit connection or some such thing. I just want to listen to music in my car, ;_;


Current Music: Angel main theme

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scribbled mystickeeper at 11:07 PM
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wJun 19, 2008


Are you kidding me?

Thanks to Maevele and Rachel Manija Brown for alerting me to recent developments via my LiveJournal friends list.

Okay. So, this one time, Nightshade Press published an anthology of short stories, titled Eclipse One. The mix of authors contained within the anthology was evenly split between men and women. Despite having a number of good (and good-selling) female authors, every name that was on the cover was male. In addition, the marketing package of the cover art was masculine.

Taken from the Wiscon panel description from this year:
The ensuing argument centered around two main points--the publishers felt that, of the authors in the anthology, the names they'd put on the cover were likely to attract the attention of more casual buyers. And because they were in the business of making money, they could not afford to put an "agenda" ahead of anything else. Readers felt that, because no women were given a slot on the cover, the publishers were reinforcing patriarchal assumptions about who sells books, and who doesn't. Some expressed the opinion that the lack of women on the cover was actually likely to deter them from buying the book.


Coffeeandink had a nice write-up of this panel posted in her LiveJournal, here. Of particular note is the concluding thoughts, which mirror my memory of the panel:
The book's sales history: Jeremy said it "sold to expectation," that he's already contracted for Volumes 2 and 3, and that based on the authors already accepted for Volume 2, there will be multiple women on the cover (I forget how many).


The table of contents for Volume Two has been released, and you can see it here, or with more comments accompanying it, here. Every name on that list except for one is a man's name.

So, as spelled out in the Wiscon panel description, there are two sides to the debate. Either it is okay for marketing people to shape their marketing strategy of fiction to reinforce a patriarchy, or it is a good idea for them to acknowledge the diversity in fiction that already exists.

Whatever side of the debate you lie on, there is no excuse for sending a representative (an editor responsible for the decision, no less!) to a feminist convention and have him fucking lie to the entire panel and everyone in the room about what they can expect in the future.

Seriously. WTF.

I now regret not typing up my notes on this panel yet. Perhaps I'll have time to do so tomorrow.

Rachel Manija Brown is actually productive in her post, and has started compiling a list of women writers and/or writers of color.
Let's make it easy for them, shall we?

Here is a convenient post listing current authors of gender and/or color who have been known to write sf and/or fantasy and/or magic realism short stories. Editors, should be uncertain whom to solicit to get fantastic stories that are not by white guys (sorry, white guys!), just check the post and comments here, and then feed the names into google. I am certain that many of the authors will be pleased to hear from you.

One could also email the list to any editors whom one happens to know are putting together anthologies. Just a thought.


Personally, I don't think the problem is simply that the white male editors have absolutely no idea where to look. I mean, it's the Internet age,right? One of the editors was at Wiscon. I don't really know what else we could do, short of a color-by-number instruction guide.


To be clear: What upsets me the most is that an editor for the publishing company came to Wiscon, sat on a panel, and lied. Who does that?

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scribbled mystickeeper at 11:35 PM
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wMay 26, 2008


This is what an ignorant jackass looks like

Okay, so it appears as though Something Awful has deleted the offensive post* made by a Wiscon attendee at her request. Indeed, she is so sorry.

So here is my question. I am assuming that people are going to want to discuss what happened. People should discuss what happened, and IMO, how it can be prevented next time.

I still have the window open on my laptop with the original post. Should I post the text in a public post so that it might be accessible to the interwebs once more? If so, where would be most appropriate: my personal blog, or the Wiscon blog? Is it offensive to re-post the material, or is it more offensive for the perpetrator to

I'd rather not re-post the pictures in my blog, and I'm not even sure that I could. If the post was deleted, I don't think that I can save them, even if they're still on a web browser window that's been open for hours.



*In case you missed it, someone who attended Wiscon spent her time snapping photographs of people without their permission, removing their faces from pictures, and uploading them to the Something Awful forums with some of the most hateful and ignorant commentary I have ever seen in my life. She attended panels such as "Fat is Not the Enemy," took pictures of people whom she considered to be fat, and then hatefully mocked them for the rest of the world to see, often posting people's names with the pictures. I felt physically ill reading the post, and was nearly in tears by the end of it.

I am disgusted and ashamed that this girl attends my University, and presumably lives in this city. I hope for her sake that our paths never cross. Verily, words would be exchanged.
(Thank God for Facebook, so I know what she looks like, am I right?)



ETA: Read the comments for a link to the first half of the original post. Also, the threads of that post on the SASS forums contain lots more pictures (did people find flickr pools?). People seem to be posting lots of just random photos from Wiscon, including a cute picture of Johanna, Jess, and someone I don't recognize. NORMALITY, IT TRANSLATES TO LOLS. I guess I'm just really out of touch with Internet humor. I don't get it.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 11:34 PM
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wApr 22, 2008


I find it highly amusing that his username is "ferret."

This post is so heavy on LiveJournal usernames that I'm just going to direct you to the post in my LiveJournal.



For those who have missed it, in addition to blogging here in this blogspot page that I've always had, I also copy and paste my posts to my LiveJournal. LiveJournal is more community-centric than Blogspot is. Each post that I make has one of fifteen user icons (selected by me) attached to it, and my LiveJournal friends leave a lot more comments than you guys do. Just sayin'.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 5:07 PM
1 comments



wFeb 18, 2008


Please, watch me wallow

So yeah, I guess I went from Best Weekend Ever to Crappiest Day Ever. THIS IS NOT OKAY.

--I've lost my car keys. I have looked everywhere, including the coat I wasn't wearing Saturday night and my sock drawer. I raked the snow under my car. It is nowhere. My car is plowed in and was on the wrong side of the street all day. They don't normally give tickets for violating alternate-side parking out where I live, but knowing my luck, I'll get a ticket. I will have to go to the dealership to get a new one. Too bad I can't get to a dealership in order to do this because....

--Chad has gone home to our parents' town because his grandpa is really, really sick and will likely die within the next day. Prayers and good-thoughts for Chad and his family are awesome.

--Apparently, some non-student n00b at Anime Club is making Alt.Room suck for everyone else, and I'm probably going to do some ass-pwning to make him stop, judging by everyone's comments. This is unfortunate - I haven't had to talk to anyone about their behavior at Club in the last two years, and I'm not very excited to do it now.

--I completely and utterly forgot about the Liturgy Training I was supposed to attend tonight. I am on the Liturgy Team. My role was to train people to lector. I VOLUNTEERED FOR THIS NIGHT. And I didn't even realize it until about 5 minutes ago, upon which there was much swearing. I am a terrible person, and I am going to hell. I especially feel terrible because I was supposed to lector (read during mass) Sunday night, and had to cancel because I was snowed in. I feel like everyone on this team thinks of me as such a flake because I never have much to say at the meetings and often can't make extra meetings due to work or school work (OR SUCKING AT LIFE, like today!), and I hate when people have negative opinions of me.

--I am about 3 weeks behind on my Con Law homework.

--Random dude on the way up the steps to the Capitol this morning: Gee, they don't shovel well here.
Me: No, it's not very good. Better than my street, though, my car's plowed in.
Dude: Oh! Well I guess you'll have to get a guy with a strong back to help you!
Me: *weak smile* Yeah.

I HATE SHIT LIKE THIS. I always feel pissed all day afterward, when I decide to be polite and not start an argument when someone I don't know very well says something sexist to me. A strong back?! Who the hell does this guy think has been shoveling and ice-scraping our sidewalks nigh on every fucking day all winter, not to mention shoveling out my own damn car, often by myself, thank-you-very-much?!

--I couldn't go to the post office today because it's President's Day. Which is actually not that terrible at all - just irritating.

--Haven't yet started the presentation I have due Friday. Yes, it's about manga and American comics but I still have to, you know, do it. Also, I don't have a scanner. That should make things a lot more interesting (and difficult).

--I still don't have a job, and it's scaring the shit out of me. Also, due to not knowing where I'll be living, I don't have an apartment yet, either.

--It's also looking like I'm going to have to walk to my polling place tomorrow, which is a bit of a hike. Not to mention, I need to find a bill addressed to me somewhere, because I'm paranoid that I won't still be registered from last spring.

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scribbled mystickeeper at 10:00 PM
2 comments