March 2010
Gravestone Iconography and Mortuary Ideology →
In which much is said about headstones.
February 2010
I am trying to find...
A post which I *know* I wrote, but it doesn’t show up in a search on wandering stars, or when I do a Google site search of meloukhia.tumblr.com, which worries me.
And brings me to a second issue: Is there a way to back up/save a Tumblog?
Los Angeles Times: Spelling bee pronouncer job... →
New York Times: Some Fish Use UV Patterns To... →
this ain't livin': Deforestation →
Combating deforestation is a tricky issue. One of the mistakes the West makes is imposing its values and beliefs on others. Now that the West has recognized that deforestation is a problem, we want to fix it our way, with our organizations coming in to run things. It’s worth asking if perhaps we would be better off allowing people to fix it their way. People who actually live and work in the...
Press Democrat: SF to crack down on 'nuisance... →
Things that apparently fall under ‘nuisance crimes’ include being homeless; San Francisco has been quietly and steadily trying to shift its homeless population to other areas (like, say, mine).
BBC News: Birds of a feather string together →
But this particular band is made up of 40 zebra finches jamming on electric guitars and cymbals at the Barbican, in London.
The walk-through orchestra-come-aviary by French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot is the latest installation in The Curve, the centre’s visual art space.
Boursier-Mougenot, who trained as a theatre composer, has placed plugged-in Gibson Les Paul guitars as perches,...
New York Times: In France, Gendarmes Are on Patrol... →
Prompts which might yield interesting results →
hijacking
peat bog
skating chickens for Christ
tiger
Philadelphia police
tractor
cookie and the gravedigger
[famous musician]
abbyjean asked: to what song did the dance session take place? inquiring minds!
Scene
I dance frenetically and sinuously around the living room (thanks, abby jean!) for several minutes with the cat, who seems more or less content with the situation. Occasionally I stumble into a patch of sunlight and he grunts with irritation.
…and then I look up and realise my father has been standing outside by the window with a slightly puzzled expression for about 80% of the dance...
soulofanomad-deactivated2010041 asked: Um, who's loki? >.o
Loki Hates the Environment
(And makes my life difficult.)
First, it was lights. Loki can operate any light with an inline switch he’s ever met, and pullchains are, of course, a cinch. He can operate flip switches reasonably proficiently. He has a tougher time with knobs although he’s game to give it a try (which is why my dimmer knobs all have toothmarks).
The problem is that Loki turns lights on but will not...
BBC News: Belgium offers chickens to waste-cutting... →
Where do I sign up for this? I love chickens!
Racism: Not limited to UCSD →
Things That Irk Me
“Use it or lose it” grants.
Basically, the way these work, is that they have weird restrictions, so people apply for them even though they don’t really want them because yay money, only then they don’t really know what to do with the money so they do crappy things. Instead of just passing on the money and moving on with life.
This is becoming an especially big problem...
this ain't livin': Idea Appropriation →
One thing which I will note about idea appropriation is that it seems to follow recognizable and established patterns, and that these patterns usually take the form of appropriation of ideas from people living in marginalized bodies. The words of nonwhite women are used by white women without credit, the words of people with disabilities are used by able folks, trans* ideas are taken up by cis...
Montreal Mirror: Please remember me →
M: The influence of the early punk scene on zine culture, DIY venues, independent labels etc. is obviously huge. Did you find the early Toronto punk scene to have a lasting effect on its current independent music scene?
LW: You have to remember that, like most cities at that time, bands would be booked in for a full week at a venue playing Top 40 covers. Because of all the groundwork that was...
LA Weekly: Rodney Alcala's Final Revenge →
Barcomb hoped that Alcala, an amateur photographer and former Los Angeles Times typesetter, would confess to the cold-case murders he is suspected of committing in the 1960s and 1970s, during an alleged murderous romp from New York’s Greenwich Village to California’s beach cities. It was Barcomb’s desire that Alcala also reveal to police any unsolved murders he may have...
Artvoice: Rioting! In The Suburbs →
This is not sound thinking. The point of consolidation is to remove layers of government by transferring their functions and responsibilities to other levels of government that are able to do the job better or more efficiently. Reducing the size of a local legislature without stripping it of any functions only leaves it do all the same jobs with fewer resources. Downsizers seem to think it...
Culture Upon Culture
Yesterday, I spent two hours hanging out with a tattoo historian and talking about the history of freaking and circus culture. This sort of thing already gets me kind of giddy because I love tattoo culture, this culture to which I belong and contribute; my skin carries markets of this culture I love so much.
But she has all of these amazing original source materials. Images (including an...
I have to keep believing in bettering California... →
annaham:
soemily:
My baby sister just called me in tears to talk about the anti-Black History month UCSD fraternity party, and the noose that someone hung in the library as a response to the anger over the party. This article includes the following: Some students countered that the reaction to the party had been overblown. Others accused the campus Black Student Union of using it to push...
Write one leaf about your own name.
(via writeoneleaf)
My legal name? I hate it. With a passion. Which is why I use my initials and not my first/middle names. I like my last name just fine; if/when I change my name I will keep my last name because it is my father’s and that makes it mine, my family name, the name I associate with love and connections.
Funny story about my last name; it’s not actually our family name....
Tell Senator Jim Bunning he is an asshat →
Or, if you prefer to use less crude language, you can tell him he is a butt hat.
No seriously people. This guy is *singlehandedly* holding up critical legislation and gleefully pledged to continue doing so into the future. Not. Cool.
Senator Jim Bunning is an asshat →
Seven Days: The Sex Spotters →
The members of SGS seem to fancy themselves the sexual-propriety police. And they’re using a powerful weapon: Internet infamy. After an article about the Facebook page appeared in the school’s newspaper, the Defender, someone representing SGS wrote a letter to the editor. “If you are lacking in class, perhaps the promise of humiliation will prevent you from slumming it with that freshman,” it...
Indyweek: Sweepstakes cafes: coming to your low... →
As census data and visits to the sweepstakes cafes show, these businesses are often located in neighborhoods where people have little to spend and a lot to lose. Ultimately, the house always wins. Because of a skillful and deliberate parsing of the law, Internet gambling is legal, whereas its video machine counterpart is not. Players “buy time,” on the computers, and players win...
Tucson Weekly: Sex worker advocates strive for... →
” … Notice and compare the outcry that we give when what we perceive to be innocent women … are hurt by strangers to the amount of attention we give when sex workers are raped and murdered. We’re sort of fine with the idea of rape and abduction of sex workers. … I may sound like I am being dramatic, but it’s proven time and time again.” She references the...
Colorado Springs Independent: Picture of Health →
How does the United States outspend everyone else on health care but still rank behind most wealthy countries on things like life expectancy and survival rates from major diseases? In The Healing of America, author, commentator and Washington Post journalist T.R. Reid sets out to answer this question by visiting and studying a range of other wealthy democracies. The take-home lesson, repeated...
Arkansas Times: Living Witness →
Abrams is herself a walking, talking history book. It’s history in an often circuitous form ― this reporter recently asked her something about the Democratic Black Caucus and got a lecture on how political interest groups evolve before the caucus came back into the conversation. (She often recalls how her late husband, Orville, used to remark on how she could pick up where she left off after...
this ain't livin': Wild Strawberries →
As for why I was sitting in a fir tree on this particular day, the answer to that is simple: It was a convenient place to sit. It’s not as though benches are scattered about willy nilly for people to use, and thus, one must make do with what is available. Clambering a few feet up into a fir tree, one can find a nice broad branch or array of branches to sit on, a sweetly-scented bower which...
Indyweek: People with eating disorders can't get... →
eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia are not often covered by health insurance. Insurance companies regularly deny patients coverage, which is expensive and long term—as many as five or six years, according to a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. And if insurance companies do cover the treatment, they base “wellness” on the person’s body...
Tucson Weekly: Getting the Ax →
On Nov. 12, 2005, he was unexpectedly called into the store manager’s office.
According to Lovio, after 26 years with Target—without any discipline problems, until the very end—he was asked to quit. When he refused, he was fired. He was escorted to his desk to clean out his belongings and then guided out of the store in front of co-workers and customers.
Lovio says that he was in a state...
FWD/Forward: Iraq: Depleted Uranium, Political... →
Rates of cancers in Iraq are skyrocketing, especially childhood cancers. Women experience breast and bladder cancer at rates which are, again, very difficult to estimate, but are known to be much higher than the norm. Numerous recent reports have also illustrated the incredibly rapid rise of genetic conditions caused by exposure to pollutants. Between 2008 and 2009, doctors in Falluja alone...
My Life's So Common It Disappears: The naming of... →
There’s a lot of feminist discussion centered around the patriarchal tradition of taking your husband’s name when you get married, and most of it seems to center on a binary of choices: either you keep “your” name and are a good feminist doing the good feminist thing, or you take your husband’s name and capitulate to the patriarchy. Depending on how kind people are...
Only In California
…do you have a hot tub/sauna sesh involving a disabled genderqueer queer fat person and an Asian man in which the conversation ends up being a layered, complicated, and delightful conversation about untangling the phyllo puff of privilege.
Seriously people? This day has been so awesome, I can’t even tell you. I am going to go melt in a puddle now, because that is what I do after I...
