Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 14

This May be Important to Me Later

“Because that’s the thing about Scooby-Doo: The bad guys in every episode aren’t monsters, they’re liars.
I can’t imagine how scandalized those critics who were relieved to have something that was mild enough to not excite their kids would’ve been if they’d stopped for a second and realized what was actually going on. The very first rule of Scooby-Doo, the single premise that sits at the heart of their adventures, is that the world is full of grown-ups who lie to kids, and that it’s up to those kids to figure out what those lies are and call them on it, even if there are other adults who believe those lies with every fiber of their being. And the way that you win isn’t through supernatural powers, or even through fighting. The way that you win is by doing the most dangerous thing that any person being lied to by someone in power can do: You think.”

—
Ask Chris #81: Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism (via missshirley)

HOGLETS (5 of them in total)

darkpaisley swept home with her magic camera and took pictures of the FIVE baby hoglets!  They are actually pretty far along, not much smaller than Ms. Groundhog herself.

R.I.P. Dr. Morgentaler

Originally posted by sabotabby at R.I.P. Dr. Morgentaler(Plz excuse the cheeky icon; under the circumstances, it seems appropriate.)

We lost a great man today. Dr. Morgentaler, a doctor and Holocaust survivor who risked his life and freedom to ensure reproductive rights for women in Canada, is dead at age 90. He lived a good long life and no one lives forever, and he had the rare privilege, I imagine, of knowing with certainty that he left the world a tangibly better place for having been in it.

The word "hero" gets thrown around a lot, particularly in regards to police and military, but in Morgentaler's case, it really does apply. He wasn't a woman, didn't have to face the wrenching life-or-death choice that unwanted pregnancy could be. He didn't need to crusade for abortion rights. He could have lived a comfortable, wealthy life without being thrown in jail or living with fear of being murdered for doing his job. But he didn't. He chose a difficult path because it was the right thing to do, and I, along with so many other women, thank him for it.

Every child a wanted child, every mother a willing mother. Rest in peace, Dr. Morgentaler. You've earned it.

(On a tangential note, I see that the prohibition on speaking ill of the dead in newspaper obituaries applies, surprise surprise, only to awful politicians and such.)

Jack Vance

Apparently passed a couple of days ago.

Hogs!

I understand that the interactions are fraught and dangerous for human and animal alike, that they take place solely because of human encroachment on habitats, and that the whole situation is terrible from one end to the other, but I kind of love suburban wildlife.  Here, behind the graveyard, we have two local flocks of vultures (one turkey and one black neck), owls, foxes, rabbits, skunks, opossums, coyotes, deer (I have heard raccoon fights, but not seen raccoons).  We also have a strain of melanotic gray squirrels (that is to say, they have black fur, and the fact that the top of the street houses a condo complex called The Pines [which is sufficiently shady] prompts the song when I see them).  We also have a groundhog with a long white scar across her back.  We're not sure how social those creatures are, but we occasionally expressed worry that Ms. Groundhog did not seem to have any groundhog friends.

Well, unbeknownst to us, she appears to have had a gentleman caller, as this morning, there are three wee hogs on the ramp up to the back shed.  I would love to congratulate her, but I assume that she would interpret that the way most prey critters interpret human actions and so I wish her and her babies well from afar.

In which I am sort of grateful LJ makes it very hard to post

Saves you guys from a lot of whinging.  Actually, I am wondering if everyone/anyone is having a problem where everything LJ related takes 900 years to load.  I am stuck with Firefox at home (I couldn't figure out how to install Chrome on Ubuntu and every time I think to take the steps to learn how, I am at work) and at work (b/c it's that or IE and no), and seriously, the site is partying like it's 1999.  Half the time, it will pop in with a "You Want to Restore Previous Draft" somewhere in the middle of me composing, so I tend to accrue a patchwork of whatever I was typing the last three times before I gave up.  Commenting has become a beast as well, especially accessing my own posts.  It takes a few minutes so show comments, which makes it difficult to respond.  Ten years ago, these problems wouldn't have been troubling at all, which is kind of funny.

A Brief, Late-Night Snit

I am sick to my back fucking teeth of the term Judeo-Christian.  I am having hideous trouble coming up with anything for which the term is actually appropriate, and it's two most common uses being "Christian, but Jews are just like Christians only no Jesus, right, so we can throw them in, too."  Or "white people."

It has officially reached the point where I have to restrain myself when the term comes across my sight.

Tonight: "The world is reminiscent of Judeo-Christian notions of hell: fire and brimstone."

Ignorant user of this stupid, stupid phrase:  I drag thee with me to white people hell, where all the food is devoid of seasoning and covered in mayo or suspended in aspic.  Also, Kenny G, soprano sax without end...

SAAAALE!

Just found out that my Robert Johnson poem "This Man," is bound for Niteblade in September.

It Meant that I was Getting Away with Something

They always showed Ray Harryhausen's films (well the films with his critters in them) after my bedtime, but sometimes I could sneak out and watch them for a while.  His monsters never scared me; they were monsters for adventures, not ones who menace little boys.  Little boys defeat those motherfuckers, and feel like heroes (well, this one did).  I hope it was the same for lots of kids, regardless or sex and gender.

I will miss you sir.  You made monsters that made little kid me feel like a hero.

What we talk about when we talk about pockets

Originally posted by kylecassidy at What we talk about when we talk about pocketsThis post is about pockets, feminism, design, autonomy and common sense. Please feel free to repost or link to it if you know people who'd benefit from the discussion.

A few weeks ago trillian_stars and I were out somewhere and she asked "Oooh, can I get a cup of coffee?" and I thought "why are you asking me? You don't need permission." But what I discovered was that her clothes had no pockets, so she had no money with her.

Mens clothes have pockets. My swimsuits have pockets. All of them do, and it's not unusual, because, what if you're swimming in the ocean and you find a fist full of pirate booty in the surf? You need somewhere to put it. Men are used to carrying stuff in their pockets, you put money there, you put car keys there. With money and car keys come power and independence. You can buy stuff, you can leave. The idea of some women's clothes not having pockets is baffling, but it's worse than that -- it's patriarchal because it makes the assumption that women will either carry a handbag, or they'll rely on men around them for money and keys and such things. (I noticed this also when Neil & Amanda were figuring out where her stuff had to go because she had no pockets.) Where do women carry tampons? Amanda wondered, In their boyfriend's pockets, Neil concluded.

I then noticed that none of trillian_stars ' running clothes had pockets. Any pockets. Which is (as they always say on "Parking Wars") ridikulus. Who leaves the house with nothing? (It's not a rhetorical question, I actually can't think of anybody).

We fixed some of this by getting this runners wrist wallet from Poutfits on Etsy -- it holds money, ID, keys ... the sort of stuff you'd need. Plus you can wipe your nose on it. It solves the running-wear problem, but not the bigger problem.




Clickenzee to Embiggen!


The bigger problem is that people who design women's fashions are still designing pants and jackets that have no pockets. In fact, this jacket we got last December has ... no pockets. It's not a question of lines or shape, it's a question of autonomy.



Clickenzee to Embiggen


So I'm asking my friends who design women's clothes to consider putting pockets in them, they can be small, they can be out of the way, they can be inside the garment, but space enough to put ID, and cash and bus tokens. And maybe a phone. (And if you can design a surreptitious tampon stash, I'm sure Neil & Amanda & a lot of other people would appreciate it as well.)





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