i'm goin' to toontown

There are so many things I have been meaning to post and not gotten around to it, including a handful of links and an update on the acapella music collection project and a mention of the actual by-god double rainbow all the way across the sky I saw two weeks ago.

So of course I'm going to post a meme instead. From cflute via technoshaman: Write Like A Girl.

Italicize the authors you've heard of before reading this list of authors, bold the ones you've read at least one work by, underline the ones of whose work you own at least one example of.

Please feel free to repost with your own favorite female SF (or non-SF) authors included! (I've added my own in a different color.)

( throw your hands up at me )

Because there are a lot of kids out there who need to hear this:
It Gets Better.
"...I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better...."

And because there are some for whom it won't:
Spirit Day.
"...On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes and at their schools...."

Because bullying doesn't get taken seriously enough, and doesn't get stopped often enough. Because there are a lot of ways to be a designated victim, and this is one of the ways in which I wasn't. Because it's bad out there. Because I cried when I heard. Because, as a wise man once said, you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do.

we write it down 'cause it's something we have to do
and you can find your voice for the ones who come after you
and you can be the one to tell the kids: hang in there
there's a way to survive, you can believe me, i've been there
i'm not that strong, i can't fight this crime
i can't right this wrong, but i can write this rhyme
if i can write this song, well then it might just shine
and i swear to god i'm a get it right this time

Because, as I posted in someone else's LJ today:

I realized today, while looking over my icons, that I don't have a political pride one. Just a political angst one (here) and a political mischief/defiance one (here).

And what that means, I gradually realized, is that this is the first time I've needed one.



Yes we did. By god, yes we did.

Apparently today is Blog Against Torture day.

Here's the thing: Torture doesn't work. Not as a means of extracting reliable information. This is known.

Is it wrong that I think this practical question completely invalidates any ethical question on the subject? That I'm not interested in even addressing the moral issue of whether it is ever defensible to hurt people in order to achieve something good or necessary, because I'm convinced that hurting people is not in fact going to achieve it?

Listen: if I can't get you to stop because it's wrong, can I get you to stop because it's futile?

I know gloating is unattractive, but ...



Hee hee hee.

I support gay rights, and I intend to support gay rights until I no longer have to because they're taken for granted.

I should probably specify that I'm talking about rights under American law. It's been pointed out to me that my religion forbids homosexuality. So it does, and I'm not looking to reform my religion; I'm looking to make sure that religious and civil law stay as separate as they can possibly be.

Which is to say that if the right to open a seafood restaurant weren't taken for granted, I'd support that too.

-- and hey, how's that for a cheery title for my first LJ post in months?

I'd been planning to start posting more often again, and I was gonna make this a What's Been Up With Me Lately sort of thing -- stuff about the apartment we're attempting to buy and the ohmygod job offer I got yesterday and similar. But I decided to save that for a later post.

Because I read this. To which I am linking with permission of the author. (Selkie's a recent addition to my flist; I met her through milliways_bar, which is another thing I will tell you all about next time.)
[ETA: Link removed, as post has been locked -- see below.]

It's about a very personal, very ugly civil rights violation. All perfectly legal and perfectly horrifying.

This story we spread.